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FREE THOUGHTS 



• CONCERNING RELIGION; 



OR, 



NATURE vEEsus THEOLOGY. 



BY 

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 

AUTHOR or 
''NATURE'S DIVINE REVELATIONS," "GREAT HARMONIA," "PRES- 
ENT AGE AND INNER LIFE," ETC., ETC. 



REVISED, RESTEREOTYPED, AND ENLARGED. 

BOSTON: 
WILLIAM WRITE AND COMPANY, 

158 "WASIIINGTOX STREET. 

KEW YORK: 
BANNER OF LIGHT BRANCH OFFICE, 544 BEOADWAY. 

1872. 







Entered ascardiog to Act of Congress, in tbe year 18T9^ 

BY ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
In the Office of the libiarian of C<»a^es8, at Washingtfnu 



Btsreotjjped at tb9 

irOBfBlT^S PBIKTII7S HOVSS, 

Comer Arenne A and Eigbtli Stmet, 

Hew Tort. 



TO THE READER. 



The following "Thoughts Conceening Heligion" 
were delivered by the Author at the Hartford Bible 
Convention. They are republished in order to meet 
objections which generally prevail in reference to the 
propriety of making Religion and Theology topics for 
free investigation and free discussion. The author 
has presented his "impressions" in a fair and forci- 
ble style, which even the most superficial reader can- 
not fail to comprehend. It is hoped and believed 
that tlie author's "Feee Thoughts" will find their 
acquaintance in thousands of minds. 

THE PUBLISHER. 



THOTJGHTS 

COI^CERNING EELIGION. 



The course of iN^ature is marked by vast and mighty 
clianges. In the lower departments of the physical 
world one set of circumstances continue till their mis- 
sion is completed, when they gradually expire, and from 
their ashes a new order of thinsfs is born into existence. 
Every great general improvement in the physical aspect 
of the globe, every magnificent alteration in the rela- 
tion of things, is preceded, accompanied, and suc- 
ceeded by some grand announcement and startling 
demonstration. The formation of mountains — those 
glorious symbols of everlasting truth — was accom- 
plished by the most terrible convulsions. From centre 
to circumference the terrestrial hall is shaken, portions 
fall while others rise, the earth trembles and quakes, 
and so are made the lofty mount, the beautiful valley, 
the undulating landscape, and the ocean's bed. But 
observe : terrible changes are never terrible in fact ! 



b THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

Every alteration in Nature's domain is invariably suc- 
ceeded by hetter circumstances. It is only man's short- 
sightedness which hinders his perception of the future 
good. 

So in the religious world. There are circumstances 
— conditions of mind and organization — which demand 
a change. And he who interrogates the page of prog- 
ress on this point receives back the answer, that in the 
religious world great and startling alterations have 
from age to age occurred — disturbing, for the time 
being, the body of mankind with paroxysms of dread- 
ful apprehension. But these changes are inevitable — 
indispensable, in fact, to the development and educa- 
tion of the world. The mounts of truth, the vast ter- 
ritories of reform, are thrown up out of dogmatism 
and despotism by stupendous efforts. And the gem as 
of history, with pen and ink ready, stands ever near 
to record the causes and consequences of the altera- 
tion. So posterity and subsequent generations are 
enlightened; and the world at last learns the lesson, 
that Truth, like the ocean's tide, is ever onward and 
resistless. 

There is nothing strong enough to stay the immut- 
able workings of this principle of change, this law of 
alternation, this method of the universe ! Kings, 
priests, and tyrants utter heart-rending groans, and 



THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. T 

remonstrate bitterly at the awfulness and majesty of 
Change. Wherefore ? Because they are so delight- 
fully circumstanced in external things, and so strongly 
intrenched in the compelled ignorance and consequent 
servitude of the masses ! But, thanks to the Supreme 
Power of the universe, the law of reform works un- 
changeably onward, and the dreaded hour at last 
arrives. Tlie voice of justice^ so long silenced by pre- 
vailiug powers, is heard thundering o'er palace and 
cathedral; and all time-sanctified institutions are in- 
vaded by the disciples of reason, notwithstanding the 
lamentations of their conservative proprietors and 
dreamy inhabitants! 

The object of this Convention* is to explore and in- 
vestigate the origin^ authority^ and influence of the Old 
and New Testaments. 

What a question for the nineteenth century ! In the 
opinion of many well-meaning persons, a convention 
with such an object in view, can be nothing less tl;an 
an act of supererogation. They suppose the origin, au- 
thority and influence of the Testaments to be as well 
established as the sun in the heavens. This supersti- 

* The Convention here alluded to, as stated in the preface, was the 
" Hartford Bible Convention" of 1853. By bearing- in mind the fact 
that the author delivered the above at this Convention, the reader 
will understand the application of the references ma(ie to it in sub- 
sequent paragraphs. — Ed. 



8 THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 

tion is the chief in Christendom. Unaided by the reve- 
lations of science, how could the early inhabitants give 
ns a Bible without mythology and errors? Without a 
pliilosophical and his.torical understanding of the origin 
of the Bible, how can we estimate its authority f Yf ith- 
out a knowledge of the cause and extent of its authority^ 
how can we ascertain the merits and demerits of its in- 
fluence f These, surely, are the questions for this age, 
because this age, more than any other, possesses the 
requisite information to answer them. The miracle of 
Joshua could not be answered until the immutable laws 
of planetary harmony were discovered ; tlie cosmologi- 
cal theory of Moses could not be answered until the 
science of geology was developed. As these sciences 
have for the first time gained a footing among the peo- 
ple, even so for the first time are the people prepared 
for the examination of the questions before this Con- 
vention. 

^In certain prudential minds are dwelling diverse 
doubts respecting the utility of conventions^ either as 
instruments of good or exponents of truth, more es- 
pecially when called to the consideration of sacred 
themes. Most persons are educated to regard religion 
as too holy a matter for debate. I think that anything is 
too holy for an angry debate, but nothing is too sacred 
for calm investigation ! 



THOUGHTS CONCEEKTNG EELIGIOIT. 9 

As every fountain declares tlie impurities and excel- 
lences of its own waters, so in this Convention, where 
ijidividuality of character is particularly encouraged, 
must each speaker stand, in presence of his own con- 
science, responsible for the utterances of his nature. 
This is free discussion. And my recommendation to 
each one is. Be watchful, lest in the exercise of this 
blessed privilege, you get too much inspiration through 
combativeness instead of conscientiousness; and, in 
your anxiety to enforce a proposition, be careful lest 
your thoughts fall from the magnificent posture of 
jprinciphs to the common error of personalities. The 
Convention, if conducted with these simple precautions, 
cannot fail of doing good. ^ 

I have said that no matter was too sacred for calm 
debate. The plea that religion is too delicate and divine 
for analytical examination, is in my estimation, the 
excuse of unsound and timid minds. My eternal motto 
is, " Any theory, hypothesis, philosophy, sect, creed, or 
institution, that fears investigation^ openly manifests 
its own error." 

We do not plant ourselves gladiatorially in the arena 
as mere antas^onists and combatants — not as mere de- 
structionists, extremists, and infidels — but in fraternal 
love, as the disciples of God-given eeason, as the nn- 
compromising advocates for universal liberty of body and 



10 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

soul, as constructionists and lovers of moderation and 
temperance in all things, and as nnflinching helievers in 
the existence and universality of Eternal Truth. Thus 
armed and equipped we come forth, and call upon 
every individual to bring his best thoughts on the points 
at issue before this Convention. The plea that religion 
is too sacred for public discussion appears transcendently 
absurd when it is recollected that this subject is publicly 
debated in every pulpit in Christendom ! But there is 
no freedom in it. Every stamp of mind is engaged in 
discoursing religion to the people. But it is all priestly 
and dogmatic. It is done in the jpulpit—?^ consecrated 
battlement, where laymen, no matter how talented and 
accomplished, are not allowed to enter ! But we 
come to the freeman^ s jpuljpit — to the public rostrum — 
and invite hither the victims of the other mode of dis- 
cussing religion. We urge them to prefer their charges, 
state their grievances, put their objections; and the 
candid devotees of whatever creed are hereby warned 
to appear before a public tribunal, and defend their the- 
ology and their interpretations of it, against the asper- 
sions of disaffected minds. 

Our course maybe condemned, but let it be duly 
remembered that the causes for calling this Convention 
would not exist if Christendom were blessed with Free 
Pulpits, By free pulpits, I mean churches where the 



THOUGHTS CONCEENINa EELIGION. 11 

reformer, the temperance man, the anti-slaverj man, 
and the man of science, can go and lay his principles 
before the people — cliurches where conscience is kindly 
treated, where the law of individual liberty is wor- 
shipped. 

Instead of this — which would do away with all neces- 
sity for Bible Conventions, and with all independent 
meetinors for free discussion — the minister is encour- 
aged in his efforts to denounce and defame any new 
movement with his accustomed dogmatism, encouraged 
to prejudice the people against a matter of which they 
know absolutely nothing ; and then, like the despotism 
of the Austrian government, the pulpit official closes up 
as far as possible every avenue to the presentation of a 
defence from the parties aggrieved. And what effects 
do these religious circumstances develop ? I will show 
you. The people, conscious of having much truth, are 
driven at last from the pulpit of dogmatic theology 
to the platform of free discussion. And the conse- 
quence will be, that the jpvhlic rostrum will supersede 
the pulpit in value and for purposes of instruction. 
Yea, our course may be condemned, as were the devel- 
opments of Galileo ; but I tell you that this Convention 
is but the effect of a set of circumstances in the religious 
world, which even one-sided and bigoted minds must 



12 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

apprehend and confess. When the cause is removed^ 
the effect will disappear. 

Most persons are educated to regard religion as being 
too holy for public debate. But what is education ? It 
is an implantation of certain symbols of thought, trans- 
ferred from one mind to another, as the artist paints on 
canvas. Thoughts are not given in this way, but the 
symbols or forms of expression into which the internal 
forces of the mind flow up. All the liquid elements of 
mentality are formed and fashioned in accordance with 
the symbols placed upon the mind by the hand of the 
master — ^just as water takes the exact shape of the vessel 
into which it is poured ! 

Is education, then, a sacred and reliable authority ? 
How do you know whether the writer of the Shorter 
Catechism was correct or incorrect? How do you know 
whether the religion of Moses was right or wrong? 
God speaks in the sanctuary of the living soul ! lie 
writes his religion upon the everlasting hills. It is 
simple, grand, universal. It never changes. But do 
symbols remain unchanged ? The Old Testament idea 
of justice is our idea of revenge. The old conceptions 
of God will suit the modern devil. What though the 
Hindoo be educated to believe certain religious thoughts, 
is he therefore to be left undisturbed ? Do not Chris- 
tians send missionaries to place Christian symbols upon 



THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 13 

the heathen's mind ? Shall we not, therefore, as 
jN^atare's missionaries,, place Nature's sjanbols upon 
the Christian mind ? The heathen loves his idols which 
man made ; the Christian loves his Bible which man 
made ; but we love Kature — physical, spiritual, and 
celestial — which God made, and perpetually sanctifies 
with the imdying glories of his Spirit. 

Let us discriminate between religion and the symbols 
or vessels which are supposed to contain it. 

If we have wrong symbols, the shape of our religion 
will be also wrong ! Man outgrows the clothing of his 
youth : may he not also outgrow the symbols of his re- 
ligion ? The essence of all religions may be immacu- 
late, which I fully believe, but if the symbols contain- 
ing it be deformed, does it not follow that the shape of 
the religion would be correspondingly defective ? 

If you admit the probability of this proposition — 
which I think you cannot escape — then, let me ask, 
how can you inform your own mind whether or not yonr 
religion be in the proper shape, unless you make the 
subject a theme for calm investigation ? " Agitation of 
thought is the beginning of wisdom." But you fear 
to in vestigate ! Anything y;hich fears i/ivestigation 
openly manifests its own error.' Do jowfear to inves- 
tigate religion lest you be led away from the smile of 
Heaven? What a groundless, ignorant fear! Is not 



14 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

heaven illimitable as the universe ? Is not God every • 
where present ? Can you be led away from a Divine 
Spirit who is " before all things, and in whom all things 
consist " ? Do you fear that by investigation you shall 
cease to be religious ? J^ay, nay, fear not ; for true re- 
ligion is the life of the soul ! The love of worship is 
the strongest love, although in different natures it has 
different modes of manifestation. Keligion and human 
existence are one and the same in essence. 

Suppose the Emperor Constantine saw fit to call a 
convention of bishops and laymen for religious pur- 
poses ; and suppose he and they, after much confusion 
and dispute, decided upon what books should be re- 
garded as "the Word of God," 2iii^what hooks should 
be rejected as spurious gospel — thus, by virtue of ex- 
ternal authority^ manufacturing for the whole world, 
and for all subsequent generations, religious symbols 
through which the human soul commonly thinks of di- 
vine and spiritual things — suppose all this to be histori- 
cally true (which it is) — let me ask : Are we not as fully 
authorized, by an example or precedent so conspicuously 
set, to call another convention, to consider whether any 
emperor or bench of bishops have a peculiar right to 
determine the shape and pattern of our religion ? Ke- 
ligion was not too sacred for investigation then ! Why 
should it be too sacred now ? 



THOUGHTS CONCERNING- EELIGION. 15 

Still you question the %itility of conventions for this 
pui'pose ? You tliink free discussions do not develop 
truth — that people are too combative and impetuous — 
that the cords of bigotry are tightened by the fierceness 
of opposition to it. But my reply is, That conventions 
are useful only as ploughs are good for the soil — they 
turn up new ground^ break away poisonous weeds, and 
demolish old stumps, for the subsequent planting of 
good seed. 

Free interchange of thought and feeling is the only 
way to wisdom. Man's mind is developed by contact 
—is educated by the individualization and comparison 
of facts. Mind must first discover facts ; then those 
facts must be by themselves examined ; then they must 
be placed in contrast and juxtaposition ; and then, from 
the latter arrangement, which comes within the juris- 
diction of every rational being, there flow out certain 
definite conclusions j and these conclusions, the mind, 
by virtue of its constitution, is constrained to accept. 
Faith is the subject of volition. Like all organized 
bodies, human minds yield to the strongest pressure. 
Faith comes from evidence. " He that believeth not 
shall be damned." Should a man be damned for a thing 
which he canTiot help % When properly applied to our 
faculties, the strongest proof makes the deepest impres- 
sion. 



16 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

According to this certain law, let me ask : How can a 
mind nnderstand religion without investigation. A man 
may be a devoted frequenter of some particular church 
— may have listened with delight and edification to the 
exposition of a certain form of religious belief — but, 
having never compared one creed with another, what 
does he know of the foundation of popular theology ? 

He may read all the publications of his denomination 
— may know the Bible by heart — what does he know of 
real mental liberty ? 

I tell you that such a man is a thorough bigot ! 
Should a reformer appear, this religious man, with the 
contents of the Bible at his tongue's end, begins his op- 
position by quoting texts. But as to whether these texts 
rest upon any divine authority or not, he never stops 
to inquire, nor any one else. If the Bible says so, that 
is all-sufficient ! Now what can such a mind know of 
impartiality and open-mindedness ? What knows he of 
the glorious matrimonial principles whereby the universe 
was built, by which men and globes alike are regulated ? 

Concerning these things he is ignorant, for he would 
not be " wise above what is written." 

And so, how profoundly does he abhor and condemn 
a Bible Convention ! He is sure no good can come of 
it ! In his opinion, it is as much as to affirm that the 
Bible is somewhere unsound — that it is not what great 
scholars and eminent philosophers have claimed for it. 



THOIJGnTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 17 

Therefore the prudential bigot thinks and asserts that 
the only effect of a Bible Convention can be to lead 
weak-minded (!) persons into scepticism, and strengthen 
the disbelief already existing. In plain English, it it 
dangerous to examine a subject which, from repeated 
experiments, is found not triumphantly to survive the 
ordeal of a fair investigation ! 

Anything which fears investigation openly manifests 
its own error. 

Of all modern suppositions, I think the idea that infi- 
del arguments have all been fairly answered by Christian 
scholars is the most prominent. There is much preten- 
sion and constrained composure based upon the efforts of 
Christian writers. All infidel objections, it is solemnly 
asserted, have been exposed and exploded over and over 
again. And churchmen say that all that can now be 
adduced is but a rehash of old infidel arguments, which 
Dr. David Nelson and Leslie have completely refuted 
and overthrown. 

I do not take issue on this point now, because I wish 
first to persuade you that we did not call this Conven- 
tion for any such low, grovelling purpose. 

We are actuated by no desire to spread scepticism on 
religious subjects — nay, we pray and work for theologic 
liberty, for universal peace, for human love and brother- 



18 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

hood, for the kingdom of heaven on earth — hence we 
design to do all we can to prevent scepticism in those 
principles which God declares to be the true religion ! 

With this Convention (or another which it may 
suggest) we mean to drive the plough deep into the soil 
of popular theology and into the origin of those texts 
which priests hurl at the movements of every true 
reformer. 

It is my conviction that the more a man Jcnows^ the 
less he believes / that is to say, the more we learn of the 
natural, the less we believe of the supernatural. Or, in 
other words, a wise man is seldom troubled with imag- 
ination. The reverse is also true. The firmest believer 
in the supernatural is one who knows but little con- 
cerning the physical laws of the world we live in. 
And as this vast system of natural existence is begin- 
ning to be better understood, it is easier to investigate 
and decide upon the asserted supernatural and miracu- 
lous, and ascertain what is and what is not entitled to 
the dignified title of " plenary inspiration." 

Since the development of the sciences of astronomy, 
geology, chemistry, etc., it cannot be denied, I think, 
that there has been established m^ore doubt than was 
ever before entertained respecting the supernatural 
origin and supernal authority of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian Scriptures. Prof. Hitchcock, Prof. Silliman, and 



THOTJGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 19 

several Englislimen of scientific attainment, have 
labored to rescue tlie Mosaic and dependent records 
from the vortex of utter repudiation. But what have 
the J accomplished ? They have confirmed and consoli- 
dated the bigotry and superstition of persons already in 
the Church. What further? They have merely con- 
vinced individuals on the outer courts of the sanctuary 
that such minds are anxious to nurse and foster their 
reputation as orthodox authors ; while their productions 
prove to the independent thinker that they acknowl- 
edge but very little about the intrinsic weaknesses of 
the theology for which they so earnestly and solemnly 
plead. 

Hugh Miller, author of " Footprints of the Creator," 
who has written as good a plea in behalf of his theologic 
faith as any churchman could, is fully conscious of the 
ignorance of the clergy. He says," " The clergy as a 
class suffer themselves to linger far in the rear of an 
intelligent and accomplished laity ^ a full age hehind 
the requirements of the time. Let them not shut their 
eyes to the danger which is obviously coming ! The 
battle of the evidences [of Cln'istianity] will have as 
certainly to be fought on the fields of physical science 
as it was contested in the last age on that of the meta- 
physics. And on this new arena the combatants will 

* Page 45, American edition. 



20 THOUGHTS CONCEKNTNG RELIGION. 

have to employ new weapons^ which it will be the 
pri^dlege of the challenger to choose. The old, opposed 
to these, would prove of but little avail." Hence the 
arguments of Kelson, or Leslie, or Paley, or Watson, 
can have no weight in the stupendous battle about to 
be fought between despotism and liberty. 

Notwithstanding this acknowledgment of ignorance 
on the part of the clergy as a class, there are persons 
who still regard them as masters in the theologic 
school — able to meet any objection which Astronomy, 
Geology, or Chemistry can urge against the authority 
of their system. Of course it is very proper to suppose 
that the clergy are the possessors of the requisite 
evidence to prove the origin and sanctity of the Jewish 
and Christian Scriptures. !N"ow we bring, not the 
objections of a party, but the developments of the 
nineteenth century, to bear upon the questions under 
discussion. We are not anti- Christ , but we are anti- 
bigotry, anti-slavery, anti-superstition, anti-supernatural 
anti-everything which militates in any manner against 
the development of human love and brotherhood. And 
we are (or I am, at least) opposed to anything in or out 
of the Bible which prevents or retards the normal 
growth of this religion. Greek, Hebrew, and Latin 
terms, however classic and high-sounding — a mere 
battle of texts — can have no possible weight in settling 



THOUGHTS CONCEENTNG RELIGION. 21 

questions which involve the origin and veracity of a 
record which is already in the English language, and 
recommended by the American Bible Society, in its 
jpresent translation, as being the infallible Word of 
God. The clergy should feel grateful to us for taking 
the trouble to show them the battle-field of this century. 
Religion, I repeat, is not too sacred for public debate, 
for religion pertains to the universal conscience of man ; 
it is the great corner-stone of the temple of human 
brotherhood, and a Convention is the instrument most 
calculated to chisel it out of life's foundations. This 
religion is not to be found between the lids of any book. 
It is in the soul of human kind. It needs development. 
Conventions, conducted with magnamity and virtue of 
purpose, will accomplish much good towards the unfold- 
ing of universal principles. Flowers can grow with 
strength and beauty only when well circumstanced. 
Conventions are valuable, not merely for the facts, truths, 
and arguments they spread before the minds of the 
people, but particularly for the freedom of sentiments, 
and the examples of courageous utterance in the presence 
of persons accustomed to pulpit monopoly. When the 
human piind is once freed, and the philosophy of con- 
scientious independence is presented to it, it spreads its 
wings and soars to summits of thought before unknovn^i. 
Reason, on the wings of faith and justice, is a bird of 



22 THOUGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 

paradise. Its flight is outward, inward, onward, up- 
ward ! And the material and spiritual universes are 
opened to these flights of freedom. The eagle is reason's 
symbol but the serpent is the hideous type of slavery ! 

"VVe contend not for partyism, but for the world. In- 
dependence of soul, based on integrity of motive, is now 
demanded. Let us teach 

*' Each man to think himself an act of God, 
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;" 

And let us 

" Bid each try, hy great thouglits and good deeds, 
To show the most of heaven he hath in him." 

We have no ambition to excel our neighbor in argu- 
ment, for a fluent tongue can give to total errors the 
semblance of truth ; and although the hearer might not 
be gifted in reply, his soul would surely remonstrate and 
condemn in silence. Nay, our only ambition is to be 
true men and true women / to show the most of heaven 
we have in us ! In argument we require facts as signs 
to go by, and principles as truths whereby to interpret 
them. No anger, no uncharitableness ; love only, and 
independence of soul enough to declare a living truth, 
even though the " heavens " of popular systems fall, and 
the " stars " in the pulpits be blotted out. 

" Read the face of Nature, that God-written Bit)le, 
Which all mankind may study and explore, 
Which none can wrest, interpolate, or libel its loving lore. 



THOITGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. . 23 

Here learn we that our Maker, whose afiection 
Knows no distinction, suffers no recall, 
Sheds its impartial favor and protection 
Alike on aU." 

The question of the origin of the" Testaments is de- 
batable from several standpoints; arguments flow in 
from sources hitherto unsuspected. 

Archaeological evidences are numerous. Antiquity 
is full of facts bearing directly on this point ; but the 
difficulty of demonstrating the validity of historical rec- 
ords drives the investigator necessarily on the ground of 
internal evidence and inference. The proposition stands 
thus: Can a book have a divine origin which is self- 
contradictory, opposed to intuition and to fact ? Can 
an unchangeable God, full of harmony and divinity, be 
the author of a book which contains inconsistencies, 
examples of revenge and repentance, and inculcates an- 
tagonistic rules for human life ? One class of minds 
deny the existence of such inconsistencies and antagon- 
isms between the lids of King James' Bible, while 
another class affirms them as demonstrable. If they do 
not exist, we infer the divine origin ; if they do exist, 
we infer that the book is of human imperfection. Here 
is a subject for your investigation. Again, the author- 
ity of the Bible may be contemplated from several 
points : authority may be argued from the ground of 
utility — that it is the best religion in the world, that it 



24 • THOTJGHTS CONCEENmG RELIGION. 

satisfies the heart and the head ; that it restrains vice 
and deifies virtue ; that, without the Bible, we would be 
without a revelation of God's will, be ignorant of the 
scheme of redemption, and that our civilization is de- 
pendent upon the principles thereby inculcated. But it 
may be argued that civilization is not a child of Chris- 
tianity ; that its authority leads to bigotry and intoler- 
ance ; that it is no hettcr than the hest part of any other 
religion • that it does not satisfy but stultifies the heart, 
and confounds the head ; that from the Bible we get 
our worst ideas of God ; that the scheme of salvation 
does not save the world from sin, slavery, and discords ; 
that its authority is good only so far as its contents 
stand the test of conscience and of scientific principles. 

One class aflirms, another denies. And this is the 
time for a thorough analyzation of these respective 
positions. "J^othing extenuate or aught set down in 
malice." 

Again, the influence of the Bible may be afiirmed to 
be mild righteousness, that thousands are joyous under 
the blessings of the Christian religion, while the heathen, 
and nations without this system, are buried in ignorance 
and degradation. I think this point calls for special 
treatment from all minds. The question is, " Is the 
difference between heathen and Christian nations at- 
tributable to the influence of the Old and New Testa- 



THOUGHTS CONCERNINa EELIGION. 25 

ments upon the latter ? " From this question all other 
questions under this head radiate / therefore, here is a 
subject for your investigation. 

Brethren, let us free ourselves from the sectarianism 
of the churches, from the mythology of the Bible, from 
the slavery of fear, from the chains of superstition! 
Reason is the sovereign of the soul, and truth is the sov- 
ereign of reason. Prove all things, hold fast to that 
which is good. 

All True Religion is immutable. I wonder that any 
one can for a moment imagine the possibility of its 
overthrow. Is truth a mere circumstance % Do clouds 
and storms extinguish the sun? Is true religion de- 
pendent for its existence upon belief or disbelief — 
upon forms and organizations ? 

O ye of little faith ! Go by the ocean's side, and be- 
hold far away the Tock of ages. The storm-king sends 
his servants to battle. The clouds assemble, thunder 
answers thunder, from the four corners of heaven the 
elements rush to one centre, and the fierce tempest 
descends with all the pageantry of contending deities. 
The ocean groans with the voice of anger, mountainous 
waves roll forward with a mighty power ; but amid all, 
and above all, stands yon noble Rock, erect, unmoved, 
and unchanged. Ten thousand times ten thousand 

storms may rage beneath, around, above; ages upon 
2 



26 THOUGHTS CONCEKNING RELIGION. 

ages may roll away ; empires may rise and kingdoms 
fall ; millions of hnman beings may come and go ; the 
terrestrial ball may pursue its pathway about the parent 
orb — yet unshaken and immovable stands the True He- 
ligion, firm as the Universe, beautiful as Deity. 

You who fear or hope that religion will be extin- 
guished, need wisdom ; go, study the constitution of the 
world. Contemplate the eock in the ocean, which no 
storms nor contention can disturb. Gaze at the sun, 
whose life-giving glories no clouds nor tempests can 
^ever diminish ! 

But where shall we find this religion which changes 
not ? Ah, here is the question ! And when we become 
acquainted with its locality, how shall Vv^e know that it is 
the " true religion " ? What is the rock ? The answer 
may be found in the New Testament : "The kingdom 
of Heaven is within you." That is to say, the law and 
the spirit — the way, truth, and life — are natural to the 
soul of man. Yea, religion has a rock in the soul. In 
its elements and essences, in its inextinguishable in- 
stincts and unfolding faculties, which are true prophets 
and true apostles — in these find we the true religion. 
If this position be not tenable — if the mind of man is 
not the basis of true religion — then is God a respecter 
of persons, partial in his dealings, and the New Testa- 
ment answer must be a fallacy. 



THOUGHTS conckr:nxn^g keligiox. 2T 

"We hear much lamentation concerning the fate of 
the Bible. In most minds, religion and the book are 
07ie and inseparable. " They mnst stand or fall 
toscether ! " But I cannot think so. Cannot a man 
exist without a shadow ? Are symbols essential to the 
existence of thought ? Surely the letter and the spirit 
are not indissoluble ! If they are, then well may we 
lament and deplore any examination of the Bible. 

The idea that the Bible is the infallible word of God 
— that it is the Hock of Ages, that in it is only to be 
found the true religion — is fatal to itself. There is a 
prevailing superstition^ generated by commentators, 
that the Old and New Testaments are intrinsically and 
extrinsically harmonious. When the whole volume is 
correctly understood (they assert), the beauty and stu- 
pendous unity of the system is clear as the sun in the 
heavens. But this assumption is made by persons who 
have the presumption to suppose that they have seen 
the harmonies of the Scriptures. 

Let us reflect on this. The assumption is that the 
Bible is the word of God — a supernaturally-originated 
and a supernaturally-inspired volume — given to man for 
his enlightenment and salvation. And yet, according to 
the Protestant system of private j udgment and liberty 
of conscience, each mind, though uninspired and in no 
manner supernaturally endowed, is left to read and And 



28 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

out the meaning of God in this word. While one man 
finds the Bible infallible, another finds it fallible ; one 
discovers it to be harmonious, another inharmonious ; 
and so come contention and criticism. I cannot but 
admire, in bold contrast, the beautiful logical consist- 
ency of the Koman Catholic Church. It never was 
guilty of trusting religion to the people — never com- 
mitted a deed so fatal to priestly despotism as that of 
permitting an ^^?^supernatural laity to read and interpret 
a supernatural book ! The reading of the boolt is fatal 
to the idea of its supernatural origin, also to its so-called 
infallible principles of religion and truth. When will 
Protestants fully realize their present situation % 

Protestants must certainly see, sooner or later, that 
the door which Martin Luther opened can never he shut 
against the onward march of the free-born soul ! The 
infallibility of the Pope is but a continuation of the 
Protestant idea of the infallibility of Moses, John, or 
Paul. If you admit the supposition of the possibility 
of IsaiaNs infallible inspiration, you have then granted 
the premises upon which Pope-and-Priest infallibility is 
predicated. If God saw proper ever to inspire super- 
naturally a Jew or a dweller of Palestine, how do you 
Jcnow but he also sees it proper to supernaturally in- 
spire a Cardinal or a Pope ? If God has ever inspired 
a paper and pasteboard book, how do you know but 



THOUaHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 29 

that he now inspires the Koman Catholic Church ? If 
you admit the one, there is no escape from the other. 
As behevers in the supernatural inspiration of the Bible 
writers, you are, according to every principle of logical 
deduction, constrained to admit the possibility of all 
which the Catholic Church claims for itself. 

But Luther, I say, in protesting against the authority 
of the Pope, opened a door for the final rejection of 
tlie hooh-authority upon which the first is based. Pio 
J^ono is as likely to be a chosen vessel of God now, as 
Paul was in the beginning of the Christian era. The 
superiority of the character of one man over that of 
another is of no account where supernatural transac- 
tions are involved in the premises. Therefore I afiirm 
that the Protestant idea of an infallible Bihle writer 
is the firm foundation of Popish despotism, and of all 
the absurdities of the Catholic institution. 

Persuade me that the^<^6r and pasteboard Bible is 
tlie infallible word of God, and I will at once accept 
the brick and mortar church as the recipient and em- 
porium of his divine favors. Persuade me that Moses, 
Joshua, Solomon, David, Isaiah, Matthew, John, and 
Paul were in very truth the chosen vessels or penmen 
of the Supreme Being, and I promise you that I will at 
once accept, and would demonstrate conclusively from 
your principles, that the unbroken chain of cardinals 



30 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

and popes, extending from Peter the First to the king- 
dom, of heaven, are as certainly the attorneys of Jeho- 
vah, and as being indispensable to all temporal and 
spiritual government and civilization. If Moses and 
Joshua and Paul are to be my Tnaster^in those sacred 
principles which bind my soul to its Author, then why 
may I not accept jPio Nono as my master and father 
in spiritual things ? You who are Protestant believers 
in Bible infallibility, cannot deny me this logical infer- 
ence. But you reply that I should not allow a mere 
man to rule over my conscience — that it is yielding my 
liberty to the jurisdiction of despots, and placing my 
soul in the keeping of mere priests and teachers of re- 
ligion. Yerily ; but what are you Protestants doing, 
when you take Moses and Paul for your masters? 
Surely these were mere men also — manifesting all the 
attributes and characteristics of humankind — and so, 
why should they, any more than Clement or Alexan- 
der, be my m^asters in the affairs of my soul ! 

Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, editor of a Catholic Quar- 
terly Peview, a man of much learning and independence, 
is a very consistent and faithful exponent of religious 
aims and tendencies. lie has travelled from Egypt, 
through tlie wilderness of scepticism, into the promised 
land of belief, which he is now preparing to rid of all 
Protestants by logical weapons. Protestants advocate 



THOUGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 31 

the supreme authority of the Bible, but tolerate to each 
man the liberty of reading its pages to suit himself. 
Brownson on the other hand advocates the absolute 
supremacy of the Pope, and denies to man any rights. 
God only has rights. Man has duties. The Church is 
God's representative, and society is under its exclusive 
dominion. The Cliurch grants privileges to govern- 
ments, and governments owe allegiance and obedience 
to the Church. Xow, this is nothing less than theologi- 
cal or Protestant despotism, logically and legitimately 
carried into practice. But how much better than this 
is the Popery or clerical dogmas of Protestants ? The 
Bible is God's representative or word, they affirm. The 
individual has no rights, but duties / mind is not the 
master, but the subject of its teachings. The Pope re- 
gards all as heretics who reject his authority ! The 
Protestant denounces all as infidels who reject the au- 
thority of Moses ! The idea is simply this : Protestantism 
is but a child of Catholicism. By a law of hereditary 
descent, the parent transmits its character to the off- 
spring ; but, as evidence of a law of progress, the child 
is not so wicked and degraded as its venerable pro- 
genitor. 

Catholics make no more opposition to Free Schools, 
whereby education' vndij be extended to all people, than 
do Protestants to the^free discussion of the Bible, where- 



B2 THOUGHTS CONCEENING KELIGION. 

by truth may be elicited and transmitted to posterity. 
In regard to Free Schools we quote from Dr. Brownson : 

" Our enemies rely upon Godless schools — State 
education — as a means of checking the progress of 
Catholicity. We must admit they have laid their plans 
with infernal skill. The result will not meet their 
anticipations, however. The attention of the Catholic 
world has been directed to this subject by those whom 
God has sent to rule over us, and a struggle^ which will 
end in victory for the Church, has begun between 
Catholicity and the State, to see who shall have the 
child." 

So speaks O. A. Brownson concerning Free Schools. 
But observe, when you read Protestant notices of this 
Bible Convention,* that, by substituting the word " con- 
vention " for schools, with one or two other alterations, 
you Avill see the same spirit manifested towards us. In- 
deed, it is hard to determine which is the worst enemy 
of freedom and humanity, — the party that would make 
the Church our master, or those who would give to us 
the Bible as a sovereign, with ovi\.j feehle reason to com- 
prehend and harmonize its multifarious inconsistencies. 
Reason {^feeble only after having been for a lifetime 
subject to bondage. Protestant denunciation of Reason 

* Reference is here made to the Hartford Bible Convention of 1853. 



THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 33 

is paralleled by Catholic defamation of Protestantism ; 
the opinions of the two parties are equally valueless. 

Father Gavazzi comes to our country, and lifts up his 
eloquent voice against the despotisms and abominations 
of the Romish Church. But he is iu bondage, and can 
do nothing more than delight a Protestant audience. 
He cannot do the " work of destruction," because he 
stands intrenched in Protestantism^ which deserves the 
same fate. He cries out against tlie ignorance, the 
idolatry, the slavery of Catholicity ; but against Prot- 
estant ignorance, idolatry, and slavery, his voice cannot 
be raised, because the receivers of his messages are 
composed of the latter party. He affirms that Catholi- 
cism is too narrow for his soul. With a soul so ex- 
panded beyond the circumscribed confines of Pius the 
Kinth, I wonder how he can breathe the confined air of 
Protestant bigotry and superstition ! I can see 7io 
difference between the infallibility of the Pope and the 
infallibility of Paul. But we have jpolitical freedom 
under Protestantism, which the Church of Pome denies 
to its subjects. Yery true ; but how came this blessing % 
It was first established through the instrumentality of 
the greatest despot, Henry VIIL, that ever ruled over 
mankind. But in our blessed land let us raise the 
hymn of gratitude to Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Frank- 
lin, and many others, who were the sworn friends of 
2* 



34 THOUGHTS CONCEENINa EELIGION. 

liberty and of free principles. Let it be remembered 
that the political and other blessings of America are 
not owing to any exertions on the part of priests, nor to 
any logical application of the doctrine of Bible infalli- 
hility, upon which Protestantism rests. 

In a recent letter to the clergy of all denominations 
I affirmed that the Battle of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity is to be fought on the broad field of scientific 
and positive principles. The old metaphysical ground of 
idealistic impossibilities — such as what and where is God ? 
what and where is spirit ? what and where is heaven ? — are 
now scarcely admitted into the arena. But the moun- 
tain torrent of civilization has dashed along regardless 
of religious and mythical obstructions, and with each 
succeeding wave there comes to our land a new discov- 
ery in some department of creation. The progress of 
scientific discovery, in one brilliant day, is carrying the 
war into the very heart of biblical authority. The 
positive and unavoidable deductions of astronomy, of 
ethnology, of archaeology, of hierology, of physiology, 
stand in startling opposition to nearly all the assump- 
tions of popular theology pertaining to Bible infalli- 
bility. I will presently bring this fact more distinctly 
before the reader. 

The scientific education of the Protestant clergy is so 
utterly neglected, while preparing for the ministry, that 



THOUGHTS CONCEEXING RELIGION. 35 

thej nsiiallj enter the field of labor without the proper 
iniplenients of spiritual husbandly. Consequently, 
having read the standard works on theology, and one 
or two books in reply to "infidel objections," the young 
minister is apt to entertain several inflated notions 
respecting the perfection of biblical wisdom. Some- 
times we hear them preach thus : " The Bible has stood 
the test of ages, l^o closeness of inspection, keenness 
of investigation, or stricture of criticism, has been able 
to defeat its claims. Moses' account of creation 
is simple and sublime. The volume of destiny is 
suddenly thrown open ; time is proclaimed ; creation 
arises ; and a new race of intelligence appears on the 
scene. Xothing can shake the plain narrative of Mo- 
ses. The Bible is perfect in all its parts — full of 
excellences — and, taken as a whole, is without contra- 
diction or inconsistency." 

Most congregations accept this as a tenable doctrine. 
Children grow up with this conviction, and so the Prot- 
estant notion of Bible infallibility is kept alive and 
before the people. But now is the time to investigate 
these positions, because never before was the world so 
full of scientific discovery. 

In the light of the nineteenth century the Mosaic 
account is notoriously unsound and fallible. We have 
a vast number of cogent reasons for rejecting the di- 



S6 THOUGHTS COIfCEETHNG EELIGIOT^, 

vine authority of Genesis. Let hie ask your attention 
to a few of them. 

First. ''In the beginning God created heaven and 
earth." There are several philosophical objections to 
the truth of this statement. It is found that matter, 
though changeable, is indestructible — not a particle can 
be put out of existence. Chemists have tried the ex- 
periment in vain. Hence Nature declares that matter 
is eternal substance, and could not have sprung from 
nothing. The creation of matter implies the bringing 
of something into existence from nothing^ which propo- 
sition no healthy mind can for a moment entertain. 
Here is one reason why we object to the Mosaic 
account. 

Second. " And God divided the light from the dark- 
ness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness 
he called Night." Aside from the supernatural opera- 
tion here implied, there are very strong scientific ob- 
jections to this statement. But first let us notice the 
internal contradiction. You will observe that there 
were three days and three nights before God put 
'Hights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the 
day from the night. ^"^ Before the creation of a "greater 
light to rule the night," how, let me ask, could there 
have been " evenings and mornings " ? But this ob- 
jection is trivial in comparison to the following: 



THOTTGHTS CONCEBNING EELIGI01?r. 37 

It is asserted that " darkness was npon the face of 
the deep ; " that God said, " Let there be light, and there 
was light," — implying the absence at first of all light 
from the universe. This is in direct antagonism to all 
the jpositive discoveries of the age. '' The celebrated 
speculation of La Place, now very generally received as 
probable by astronomers, concerning the origin of the 
earth and planets, participates essentially in the strictly 
inductive character of modern theory. The specula- 
tion is, that the atmosphere of the sun originally ex- 
tended to the present limits of the solar system ; from 
which, by the process of cooling, it has contracted to 
its present dimensions. There is in La Place's theory," 
says Mill, in his System of Logic, " nothing hypothet- 
ical ; it is an example of legitimate reasoning from a 
present effect to a past cause, according to the known 
laws of that cause." Science demonstrates that first 
heat, light and electricity were in existence hefore the 
earth was formed; but Genesis makes the earth to 
exist previous to light ! E"ature and the Old Testament 
are here at war with each other. Which shall we 
believe ? 

Third. The Mosaic account is unsound, because it 
teaches that the heavens and earth, and all that in them 
is, were made all perfect at once. " The Almighty 
voice is addressed to chaos. Confusion hears it, and 



38 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

wild uproar stands ruled. The waters subside; the 
verdant landscape is seen; songs burst from every 
grove ; and stars, bright, rolling, and silent-beaming, 
are hurled forth from the Almighty hand." And 
Genesis also affirms that man was more pure, perfect, 
and wise — more in unity with heaven and its Author — 
than the race is to-day ! 

In absolute refutation of all this, how explicit are 
the positive declarations of universal nature ! TIiq first 
types of vegetation, the first indications of animal life, 
the first things performed or invented by mankind, 
w^ere rough, crude, incomplete, and in every respect 
inferior to after developments. All things — trees, fish, 
birds, animals — grow from incompleteness to perfection, 
from rudeness to refinement, from the imperfect to the 
beautiful. And must all the declarations of Nature be 
overruled by the authority of a book whose origin is 
Eastern and mythical? 

Fourth, We object to Genesis because of another 
internal contradiction. The book asserts that " God 
saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was 
very good.'''' If God saw everything and pronounced 
everything good, let me ask : Who made the wicked 
serpent that tempted Eve ? If thi^ animal was more 
subtile than any beast of the field, having the devil in 



THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 39 

liim, wlio created them ? Who was it that made and 
pronounced everything good. 

Fifth. Genesis cannot be a true report of creation, 
because, instead of coinciding with the revelations of 
universal nature, which prove the gradual formation of 
the globe by a cooling-off process, the progressive intro- 
duction or development of plants and animals on its 
surface by a natural method of growth, the account 
teaches the particular, the sudden, the miraculous, the 
incomprehensible creation of everything in six literal 
days. 

Sixth. Genesis cannot be a true report, because it 
contradicts the positive declarations of Astronomy. 
According to our system of chronological calculation, 
Moses makes the heavens and the earth about six thou- 
sand years old. But astronomy declares that light re- 
quires three hundred thousand years to travel fi-om one 
of the fixed stars to our earth! This one fact alone 
proves that those orbs have been in existence three hun- 
dred thoiisand years ! But you answer, " that all things 
are possible with God." Paul denies this (Heb. vi. 18), 
and affirms by two immutahle things it is impossible 
for God to lie. In this I believe with the apostle, for I 
cannot think that the Spirit of this beautiful universe is 
capahle of an inconsistency ! 

Seventh. Genesis cannot be a true report, because it 



40 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

belittles our ideas of God. The extent and grandeur of 
the universe, the resplendent objects and countless as- 
semblages which people the empire of being, cleanse 
and purify the mind of all contracted notions of the 
Deity and his government. But Moses destroys all 
consistent ideas of an omnipresent energizing Spirit, by 
describing him as a man making the universe in six 
days, and, being fatigued, as resting on the seventh ; 
and not only so, but as "walking in the garden in the 
cool of the day " — as any common Eg^^ptian god would 
be supposed to do — with hands and feet, and a lim- 
ited power of vision. Adam and his wife hid them- 
selves from the presence of an OQnnipresent, omnipotent, 
omniscient Spirit. And an omniscient Being, unable to 
find the guilty pair among the trees of the garden, began 
to call unto Adam : " Where art thou ? " And, after 
the creation was getting along altogether too fast and 
wickedly for the Creator, then, again, like an Egyp- 
tian god (Gen. vi. 6), "it repented the Lord that he 
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his 
heart." Now, all this is vastly too human and insignifi- 
cant to be applied to the omniscient Spirit of this uni- 
verse. Every man. Christian or Pagan, when in his 
right mind, totally rejects the narrow and cramping 
idea of God advocated in the book of Genesis and else- 
where. " A universe," says Rev. Thomas Dick, " vast, 



TnOUGHTS CONCEElinNG RELIGION. 41 

boundless, and incomprehensible, is just such as we 
ought naturally to expect from a Being who is infinite, 
eternal, and omnipresent ; whose power is uncontrolla- 
ble, whose wisdom is unsearchable, and whose goodness 
is boundless and diffusive. All his plans and operations 
must be, like himself, vast, boundless, and inconceivable 
by mortals." ]^ow, I submit that this idea is not appli- 
cable to the Mosaic God of creation ! 

Eighth. The most advanced thinkers among the 
supporters of the Mosaic theory have, as I am fully 
aware, made a virtue of necessity, by abandoning the 
idea of six literal days of creation, and accepting, in- 
stead, the geological interpretation of epochs or " ages." 
The most learned of modern Christian writers say, that 
the term " evening and the morning " must be accepted 
figuratively J to mean the " ending and beginning " of 
indefinite stages of creative development. Yery well ; 
there can be no objection to putting a little new wine 
in an old bottle, if therefore the wine will but be more 
acceptable to creatures of habit. But here comes a 
trouble of inconsistency. If we are now to receive the 
six days ^^ figurative^ how shall we regard the seventh 
day J on which the Lord rested % If the six days signify 
" ages," what does the seventh day mean ? Why are we 
inconsistently and hypocritically keeping one day in 
each common week as the day hallowed by the repose 



42 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

of Deity, while, in our theory, we are compelled to ac- 
cept the six days as uncertain, immeasurable, indefinite 
strides of creative development ? Here, again, the 
positive principles and deductions of a philosophical 
theology stand in direct antagonism to the accounts of 
Moses. 

There are before my mind eighteen other reasons, all 
equally cogent, going to invalidate the divine authority 
and intrinsic correctness of the very first chapters in 
King James' Bible. But we will let them pass, and ask 
attention to the origin of those chapters. 

It is a singular and significant fact, that there is not 
a line in Egyptian history alluding to the existence or 
prodigies of Moses. The Egyptians were a cultivated 
people. Like a chain of mountains, their wonderful 
pyramids extend far behind the period set to Noah's 
flood, without so much as mentioning such a marvellous 
catastrophe or event. Kecent ethnological discoveries 
carry us into the remote past, or eight thousand years 
from the present time, making the Egyptian nation, 
with signs of the existence of a still riper civilization 
previously, two thousand years older than Moses sets to 
the creation of man. The hierologist is sustained by 
Chinese records, and the later of geologic sciences. 

And, what is still more remarkable, the thrilling 
mythic and simple orphic sayings and verses of Egypt, 



THOUGHTS CONCEENma EELIGION. 43 

Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, are, in conception, and 
mostly in phraseology, identical with the first part of 
the book of Genesis. And when the hieroglyphic char- 
acters of Egypt, Tartary, and Africa shall have been 
perfectly deciphered, it will be found, I think, that the 
cosmologic and demonologic relations of Moses were in 
existence nearly two thousand years before such a peo- 
ple as the Jews had begun to be. These discoveries, 
however, will be tardily introduced, because every trav- 
.eller and antiquarian knows that he is writing books to 
be read by Protestant and sectarian readers. 

Richard, in his work on Eg}^tian my tlaology, repudi- 
ates the idea that Moses was inspired to write the Pen- 
tateuch. He says : " The ^yq books of Moses carry 
with them internal evidence, 7iot of one sole, connected, 
original composition, but they bear evidence of being a 
compilation from earlier annals. The genealogical 
tables and family records of various tribes, tliat are 
found embodied in the Pentateuch, bear the appearance 
of documents copied from written archives. They dis- 
play no trait which might lead us to ascribe their pro- 
duction to the dictates of immediate revelation." The 
first ten chapters of Genesis, which contain an account 
of creation, are nearly two thousand years older than 
the Jewish nation. The pyramids and obelisks of 
Egypt, and the hierogl}^hic records on the land of Tar- 



4:4: THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

tary, will, when fairly brought to the light, reveal the 
Oriental parentage of the books of Moses. 

Perhaps you think me too far in advance of discov- 
ery. The celebrated Mr. Gliddon, in his carefully 
written work on " Ancient Egypt," says : " There is no 
reason for supposhig that other contemporary nations * 
did not possess, in those earlier times, similar records ; 
nor is there any reason why other contemporary nations 
should not have chronicled all great events, and handed 
down, as far as ourselves, some of the annals of those, 
events on which the Bible, during an interval of four 
htmdred years, is strictly silent." Two books, one enti- 
tled the " Wars of Jehovah," and the other " Sepher- 
Ilajasher," have been found, which our Bible does not 
contain. How came these omissions ? 

Intelligent Christians acknowledge that the present 
antiquated mode of biblical interpretation cannot with- 
stand the positive deductions of all the sciences and dis- 
coveries of the age. Regarded as a record of physical 
events, the Mosaic history cannot be sustained. Hence 
many minds are driven into spiritual or symbolic inter- 
pretation. The creation of the world, the garden of 
Eden, the temptation and fall, the deluge and tower of 
Babel, are received by many as symbolic relations — as 
types of spiritual experience and events — referring 
* That is, nations existing at the time of the Israelites. 



THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 45 

equally to nations and individuals. Swedenborg, dis- 
tinguished for his historic and scientific knowledge, de- 
clares, in his commentary on the Jewish Testament, that 
these events and accounts can be understood and sup- 
ported only in ^figurative or spiritual sense — implying 
that a literal view of them, as entertained by New Eng- 
land clergy and laity, is at once absurd, untenable, and 
unsupportable by nature, reason, intuition, and history. 
It would consume our time to present Swedenborg's 
science of correspondences ; but enough is adduced to 
show what reasonable men and scholars think of the 
Mosaic account. Swedenborg affirms that the early 
Scriptures were written in correspondential language, 
of which the hieroglyphic scriptures of earth are vesti- 
ges. Every figure symholized some particular idea. 
Thus, as some writer remarks, a heetle did not stand for 
a beetle only, but also for the world ; an asp corre- 
sponded to royalty / the eagle, to courage ; the lion, to 
strength / a ranCs head, to intellect / a clxich, to a doc- 
tor of medicine 'j and a goose to a doctor of divinity. 

The idea that the Bible is a connected whole, without 
contradiction or inconsistency, is a superstition of the 
Protestant priesthood. The intelligent and accom- 
plished Jesuit entertains no such untenable opinion. 
lie depends upon the external despotisms of organiza- 
tion, and upon the attractions of a well-regulated and 



46 THOUGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 

venerable ecclesiasticism, for the success of his design 
upon the religious liberties of humanity. Protestantism 
and Catholicism deserve the same condemnation. They 
differ, not in the character of their notions respecting 
infallibility, but in degree only. 

The Catholic idea of Pope and Church infallibility is 
simply an elongation or extension of the Protestant idea 
of Old and New Testament infallibility. 

The two parties are, in theory and theology, equally 
foes to the interests and liberties of the world. And I 
have shown, I think, that one should not be allowed to 
imjDOse any more restrictions on the soul of man than 
the other; that is to say, neither is good enough to 
merit the support of intelligent, benevolent, free, and 
conscientious minds. 

Have I said anything against true religion % Because 
I reject the infallibility of Paul and the Pope — the in- 
fallibility of a book and a church — am I therefore irre- 
ligious ? The Old Testament is a statement of the ideas 
and events of the Patriarchal Age — the era of Force ; 
the ITew Testament is a statement of the ideas and 
events of the Transitional Age — the era of Love ; the 
two, combined, formed King James' Bible. But let me 
ask — why should the statement of one age remain the 
statement of all ages ? 

Can religion be based on a book? This idea has 



THOTTGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 47 

obtained among Christians; hence they imagine the 
heathen to be benighted, and without religion ! Is God 
a respecter of persons or nations ? Far from it. True 
religion, like true anatomy and physiology, is older than 
books ! There must be a religion older than the Bible, 
a God hetter than it declares. 

Did Kewton learn astronomy in books ? Did Jesus 
learn intuition and love of all human kind from the 
prophets? Is there no inexhaustible fountain from 
whose flowing rivulets each soul may freely drink ? 
Does the same God not always inspire and nourish? 
"What would ye think of a man who does all his fann- 
ing, ploughing, and ^planting by reading hoohs on 
Egyptian and Roman agriculture ? The land before his 
eyes would meanwhile grow thorns and unwholesome 
vegetation. What, then, do ye think of Christians who 
bid their followers to read and helieve King James' ver- 
sion of the Testaments, to the end that they may be 
religious and acceptable unto God? He who would 
not " be wise above what is written " (in any book) is a 
miserable pagan, engaged in blindly loving his ideals, 
and needs philosophic culture. For is there not a law, 
a science, a principle of justice and equity, in man's 
mental economy, sicjperior to all writing? Let every 
son and daughter of nature be developed to the fulness 



48 THOUGHTS CONOEENING RELIGION 

of the stature of the jperfect man — let society develop 
the kingdom of Justice and Freedom within each soul 
and family — then you will see a manifestation of teue 

KELIGION. 



THREE REASONS 

For not Accepting the Bible as a Special 
Revelation from God to Man.* 



First— It must be conceded that one man or one woman is just as much the offspring 
or child of God, by nature, as another, and that if one needed a special revelation all 
needed a special revelation. And to give a special revelation to a mere fraction of the 
human race, leaving the great mass of mankind to go to destruction, would be the very 
climax of injustice. The New Testament has been in the world from fifteen to sixteen 
hundred years, during which time not more than one in a hundred thousand have 
possessed it. As to the Old Testament, there were but very few copies in the world 
previous to the commencement of the Christian era (so-called). 

Second — A -mritten revelation, to be interpreted, requires an artificial accomplishment — 
namely, the art of reading ; which hardly one in as many hundred thousand have 
possessed within the last thirty centuries. 

Third — It is self-evident that a God of infinite wisdom and justice would, if ma^ had 
.^ded a special revelation, have one not dependent upon parchment, pens, ink, and 
artificial accomplishments, that only the wealthy and favored have possessed ; but it 
would be as plain as the sunlight, as free as the air to all nations, tongues, and kindreds ; 
not liable to interpolations and mistranslations, not requiring six or eight huge volumes 
of commentaries to peruse, and find yourself, as in the beginning, in utter darkness. 
Instead of bemg given to a smaU. and obscure nation, in a little corner of the earth and in 
one language, i •»'X)uid have been given to all nations and in all languages. 

Instead of that huge and ponderous volume abounding in contradictions, and from 
which all manner of doctrines can be proved and disproved, and to make clear requires 
from £200 to £500 a year ; instead of this, a few short and simple precepts only would 
be needed to teach man his duties. , 

First — To accept the Bible as a special revelation from God to man, we must believe 
that God is partial and unjust, unworthy the love and confidence of man, and can only 
be looked upon as an infinite monster of cruelty and injustice. 

Second — That a sad want of wisdom would be manifest in providing means to an end ; 
that is, in giving man a special revelation in such a manner that not one in a thousand 
would ever hear of, and not one in fifty thousand could ever read if they possessed it. 

Third — We should have to believe that God gave man a special revelation, not only 
abounding in contradictions, bxit in such an ambiguous and indefinite a manner that it 
leads its adherents to slaughtering each other until millions of human lives had been 
sacrificed. 



*From ^'Junius,'' in the i\r. Y. Herald, April 23d, 1870. 



EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 



** When from the lips of truth one mighty breath 
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze 
The whole dark pile of human mockeries, 
Then shall the race of mind commence on earth, 
And, starting fresh, as from the second birth, 
Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spriufif, 
Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing." 

Innovators and reformers are called iconoclasts, or 
idol-and-church-destroyers, and so they are; because 
most of them have arisen to a plane of comprehensive 
thought and of holier inspiration, from which it is easy 
to see that the time will surely come when whatsoever 
is fleeting and evanescent in the idol-temples, pagodas, 
and churches of the world — their forms, their ceremo- 
nies, their rituals, liturgies, and whatever you choose 
to name that, in them, which causes one sect to differ 
from and hate its neighbor — is destined to be known 
only in the historic monuments of the world, having 
passed utterly out of all human confidence, and thus 
out of existence. 

We, therefore, have the reputation of being opposed 
to churches, which many deem equivalent to being 
opposed to " religion." I have no acquaintance with 
any sincere spiritual-minded man or woman who wishes 



52 THOUGHTS CONOEKXIXa keltgion. 

to destroy pure and undefiled religion. Excepting those 
who make a great mistake in their conceptions of the 
ordinary meaning of words, I know not one individual 
in spirituality, who supposes that when he is opposing 
the mythological theology of the cliurches, he is neces- 
sarily thereby opposing religion. Negationists, or the 
anti-spiritual skeptics, seem to think and write as if 
anything that bears the impress or label of religion is 
worthy of their severest invectives and unqualified con- 
demnation. This is not our mental condition ; neither 
is it the condition of many skeptics. Sift the actuating 
motives of these minds — trace their thoughts down to 
the very germs, and you will discover that they oppose, 
and desire to oppose, only what they conceive to be 
"pious frauds," and hurtful " errors" in the moral and 
spiritual sentiments of mankind. They are no more 
opposed to true spiritual religion, which is immanently 
fixed in the constitution of the human soul, tlian they 
are opposed to the fragrance of flowers. 

The universe, as I have before said, is filled with 
DESIGNS. Reason very simply and logically follows the 
lead of these designs into very profound depths, and 
unto far-reaching hights of thought, partly by inductive 
research, by the hints of its intuitions, and by means 
of analogy. The existence of light, for illustration, 
presupposes and guarantees the existence of eyes ; the 
existence of sound guarantees, presupposes, and fixes as 
a matter of mathematical necessity, the existence of ears. 
If the fishes in the Kentucky cave have no eyes, it is 
presumptive evidence — in fact, it is demonstrative — 
that there is therein no light for them. Apply this 
method of reasoning to the structure of the human 



EXPENSIVENESS OF EEKOK IN EELIGION, 53 

mind, nearest its moral and spiritual apex or summits. 
We find there the existence of superior faculties which 
take hold upon truths, ideas and principles — faculties, 
with hearts and tongues, which give off unutterable 
yearnings and utter holiest prayers to know more con- 
cerning human life beyond the grave. Shall we not 
say that these faculties presuppose and demonstrate the 
existence of the truths, ideas, and principles, for which 
they seek and thirst and hunger ? Not only so, but also 
that the Summer-Land life to which they aspire, and 
after which they perpetually inquire, and into which 
they lovingly plunge and bathe whenever the cloud 
of doubt is enough removed to admit of an eternal 
right, is a reality not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens. 

These spiritual faculties are dwelling in the summits of 
the human structure. They, consequently, are the first to 
catch heaven's light when it streams over the horizon 
of faithful thought concerning immortality. The supe- 
rior faculties, being stationed in the superior part of 
the human structure, are also and necessarily the first 
to yearn for what is called " religion.''' They yearn 
like angelic-children for knowledge of whatsoever is 
spiritual and celestial, pertaining to eternal life, its 
beatitudes and its happiness. These faculties do not 
grow under insincerity and persecution. They are in 
themselves wise. They are also filled with love. From 
the center they grow and put forth the purest and most 
enthusiastic aspirations. These aspirations spring out 
of divine warmth, which multiplies and fertilizes theiUj 
and gives them fruitage and happiness. The perceptive 
part of mind apprehends, applies checks and modifica- 



54: THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

tionSj gives symmetry of manifestation, and perfection 
of expression. Persons who are wise in their religious 
emotions, are symmetrical in their manifestations. Those 
who have only love in their spiritual faculties, and not 
wisdom, are full of idolatry and impulsiveness — are 
given to extremes, excesses, infatuations, and fanaticisms 
^ — which you can read in the private and earliest history 
of every religion. Now, it is not what these spiritual 
fac-ulties love that we oppose ; but i\\Q forms which they 
have gathered about them, and through which they have 
necessitated the world to express itself. If the kingdom 
of heaven should " come on the earth" week after next, 
do you suppose it would indorse the different evangeli- 
cal forms of expressing religion ? Do you suppose that 
an approval would come from the courts of infinitude, 
adopting as essential the various exercises and conse- 
quent antagonisms which have grown up full of thorns 
in these churches ? Subdue and paint them as much as 
you choose, you will still find that the antagonism of 
the creeds is anti-kingdom-of-heaven ; it is, rather, 
propandemonium, human in origin, and is marked for 
an early consignment to the pit of oblivion. 

We reformers come, therefore, to announce and to 
work for the extinction of these differences. Not that 
all men will or can think alike, but that they can and 
will raise above creedal differences and reject mytholo- 
gical interpretations of interior truths. On the mere 
controversy as to what is meant in the Bible by the 
word " baptism," millions of bigots and thousands of 
dollars have been added to churches throughout the 
country. That controversy, by making different forms 
of faith, has built church after church ; one to gratify 



EXPEXSIVENESS OF EEEOPw IN EELIGION. 55 

the Calvinistic faith, another to gratify the Free Will 
Baptists, and a third to gratify the Close Communion 
Baptists. Do you suppose that, in the good time coming, 
alias the kingdom of heaven, these shallow-brained 
interpretations will be perpetuated ? We do not oppose 
" religion," nor what is true spirituality in the human 
soul ; but we oppose the misapprehension and creeds 
which have clustered about it in the development of the 
religious faculties. The controversy as to whether the 
grace of God was, from^ the foundation of the world, 
prepared for and meted out to all persons before their 
birth, and thus would foreordain and govern their indi- 
vidual destinies through the eternal ages, or whether 
the grace of God was a free gift to all who would accept, 
has built all these immense piles of property called the 
" Houses of God," or churches and tabernacles. They 
loom up before you in magnificent stupidity. These 
buildings are confessedly coronating the diabolical con- 
troversies that have grown from the foolish interpreta- 
tions of a few unimportant words which somebody, in a 
religious state of mind, uttered twenty centuries ago. 
Do you suppose the kingdom of heaven, alias " the good 
time coming," will approve of such a condition of 
things? If you do, pray for the advent of that king- 
dom ; then, (oh, fearful thought I) you really pray for 
just such reformers and for such iconoclasts and for such 
opponents of the creeds that built the churches, as exist 
and speak and write and work for progress in the nine- 
teenth century ! 

The spiritual faculties, on the summit of the mind, 
exist because there are ideas, principles, truths, and 
eternal Summer-Lands answering to them. These facul- 



56 



THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION- 



ties yearn for these realities in the universe as naturally 
as one's appetite yearns for food, or the thirsting mouth 
for drink. Thirst presupposes the existence of wator, 
and hunger indicates the existence of food. You have 
yearnings to know what is beyond, to appreciate, to 
realize and to enjoy what is ideal and beautiful and 
sweet ; and these inborn yearnings are infallible demon- 
strations of the positive existence of all that for which 
they hunger and thirst, and to promote which they 
devote property, yield grea^j industry, and pledge so 
much of time, friendship, love, and worship. 

Can you wonder that the soul delights to sit and 
dream in this beautiful oiellow light of the Infinite 
Spirit? The Lazzaroni of Italy, so poor and so infirm 
that they cannot obtain wood to keep their bodies warm 
in the winter, can go out on the southern side of the 
rocks and cliffs and groves, and absorb the warm sunny 
influences that emanate from the physical orb in the 
blue heavens, a beautiful substitute for the heat of the 
wood that would keep them comfortable. It is thus 
with every human soul at times. You may be a spiritual 
mendicant. You may go about asking heart-charities 
and wisdom-alms of your spiritual brothers or sisters. 
All persons in the churches on Sunday are really asking 
alms of heaven through the pulpit, even when the minis- 
ter himself is miserably " poor in spirit.'' But almost 
every soul enters the " interior" at times. This deep- 
ening of the mind may come from the reading of ideas, 
or through contemplation of holy principles, or from a 
sacred enthusiasm, or it may be awakened by some exter- 
nal cause like the whisperings of an angel. At such a 
moment the soul will come into a new relation to the 



EXPENSIVENESS OF EKJKOR IN KELIGION. 57 

infinite sun. It instantly warms and fertilizes the 
affections, gives unity and joy and beautiful happiness 
for the moment, and the spirit is lifted beyond utter- 
ance. It is a thrill that goes like lightning throughout 
the spirit, awakening its gratitude and filling its loves 
with inward songs of celestial harmony. Such expe- 
riences invariably come through the inward faculties, 
which, for the moment, are lifted and gratified by con- 
tact with the wise and loving life of the Infinite Father 
and Mother. 

But start with an error, make a radical mistake, 
through want of wisdom in opening your account in the 
day-book and the ledger of theology, and it will run 
throughout all your growth in " religion." From the 
moment it enters into the compilation, your whole record 
is vitiated. Sometimes, in our large banks and in our 
commercial institutions, an error creeps stealthily into 
the ledger. At first, perhaps, it is but a vulgar frac- 
tion. In a few months it increases rapidly ; in a few 
years it is large and important. In a quarter of a cen- 
tury, when the great day of settlement has come, when 
the stockhl^lders apply to know, definitely all their 
resources and liabilities, then comes an investigation, 
and a ponderous and expensive error is found running 
through all the books of the institution. Then they 
send for the best known accountant to review and ana- 
lyze the books. Days and weeks, and perhaps months, 
are given to the tedious labor of ferreting out the error 
and expelling it from the books of the institution. It 
requires a good deal of money to compensate the inves- 
tigator, and a great deal of fine insight is expended in 
seeing exactly how that little blunder originated. How 



58 THOUGHTS COXCICENINa EELIGION. 

enormously it grew in twenty-five years ! sweeping 
away much capital and the reputation of honest clerks, 
and how anxious all stockholders were to get the wrong 
righted, the error expelled, and the reform estab- 
lished. 

Now suppose you apply this to the errors of religion. 
But just here let us remember it is not claimed that the 
business of the mercantile, banking, or commercial insti- 
tution was in itself spurious, but that there was a vicious, 
and expensive, and demoralizing erro7' introduced ; but 
not necessarily by any evil intent on the part of the 
persons who opened the account. Of religious error we 
say the same. The word " religion" I now use to 
express the spirit of truth in the human soul, which 
includes goodness and virtue and all the higher attri- 
butes and beauties of the Infinite. Truth, and a love 
for truth, seems to be the finest embodiment and exem- " 
plification of what is called " God." The faculties 
group themselves in worshipful love about that concep- 
tion. That conception is, in itself, a treasure of infinite 
value to the spirit. It gives joy and holy peace. But 
in gratifying these faculties, which see truth, and enter- 
tain the love of truth, mankind frequently commit mis- 
takes and originate expensive errors. The greatest and 
heaviest error is what men call " theology." We dis- 
criminate with great tenacity, and forever insist upon 
our definition, between the "religion" and "theology" 
which has crept into religion. The error of the theology 
runs throughout the world, and is threatening the 
so-styled civilized portion of mankind with political as 
well as religious bankruptcy. To-day it is necessary 
that our best spiritual accountants should enter into an 



EXPENSrV'EN^ESS OF EREOE IX KDLIGION. 59 

investigation, and ferret out the error, and leave the 
pure spirit of religion an opportunity to flourish as the 
white rose of heaven. 

Reformers, intellectuallv, socially, and spiritually, are, 
like other men and women, more or less imperfect; some 
are very good, but very peculiar ; some talk and write 
and work with a great deal of discord ; some are 
exceedingly antagonistic and disagreeable to encounter; 
but with all their eccentricities and sledge-hammer 
roughness, with all their excoriating adjectives and 
unrestrained expletives, they are the necessary agents 
of Justice, the vicegerents of eternal truth, working in 
the midst of idols and forms and ceremonies, and relieving 
the world of expensive errors in its theologies. Theology 
is the systematic form in which the spirit of religion is 
clothed. Theology I do not at all believe in ; while I 
believe profoundly in religion. That is, I believe in 
whatsoever my spirit sees and feels is spiritual and inte- 
rior and eternal. No deep nature can have faith in 
that which is evanescent, fleeting, formal, ceremonial, 
and suited only to gratify, for the time, those persons 
who suppose that " theology" should give shape and 
expression to pure and undefiled religion. Pure and 
undefiled truth is simple and easily comprehended. 
Every one has faith in it from the source of intuition. 
Did you ever hear any one speak of old theology — 
the legitimate child of an ignorant priesthood — as 
being " pure and undefiled" ? 

Polytheism, the doctrine of a great many Gods ; or 
Pantheism, in which all being is God ; Dualism — mean- 
ing a God and a Devil; or Deism, which is Unitarian- 
ism, teaching the one God — these all enter into the 
catalogue of the world's theologies. Anthropomorph- 



60 THOUGHTS OONCERNIN'G RELIGION. 

isra, that is, attributing to God the form and charac- 
ter of man, is sacred to many civilized people. They 
will receive no revelations or inspirations which tend 
to dissipate the notion that God is a great man. If it 
be affirmed that " God is a spirit," and that spirit is 
diffused throughout the universe, the statement is label- 
ed "pantheism." And yet this is the doctrine of the 
New Testament. (See John, chapter iv., 24th verse.) 
In the Old Testament, on the other hand, you will find 
the doctrine of anthropomorphism, the man-God, or 
deism — Jehovah, the concentration of almightiness, the 
focalization of all stout convictions concerning the attri- 
bute of omnipotence — Jehovah, the Jewish God of infi- 
nite, desperate, and destructive attributes, with nothing 
for the heart, and generally repulsive to everything 
human. 

When the heart grows warmer and larger, it sees, 
or thinks it sees, a Father in the maker, and calls him 
by that endearing name. Such hearts- pray to the 
" Father" instead of to Jehovah, whose omnipotence 
and implacable justice overwhelm the mind. The human 
soul is filled with conceptions of pure tenderness, which 
call for tender eternal relations. These spiritual facul- 
ties require tender relations in every stage of their 
development. Hence the Father was revealed, prayed 
to, besought, invoked, and teased too much by the child- 
hood stage of the race. It makes children fretful, 
peevish, and small-minded to cry all their wants and 
troubles and sorrows into the ears of the Infinite Spirit. 
But this absurdity is a part of theology, and here is an 
error, and yet it is a spontaneous, though unwiscj 
expression of the spirit of love and worship by the rcli- 



EXPENSIVEXESS OF EEGOE IX EELIGION. Gl 

* gious faculties. Many souls affect to be severely shocked, 
and their children in Sunday-schools are really shocked^ 
because their theology says the all-beautiful, all-loviiigj 
all-embracing Father is pai'ticeps criminis to the eternal 
damnation of nine persons in every ten ! There are 
civilized ministers in the city of New York to-day, who 
are (I trust) ashamed to the very heart for ever having 
believed and taught any such error in religion. And 
yet there are some persons who affect to believe this 
stupid error with all their heart — of course that organ 
cannot be very spacious ; and there are ministers who 
yet preach it with all their heads — the capacity whereof 
does not excite anybody's astonishment. But, unhappily 
they have the power to make mothers believe, and the 
innocent children whom such mothers send to the Sun- 
day-schools also believCj that God is a great Baptist, 
instead of a Presbyterian sprinkler, or that God is a 
red-hot Methodist instead of an easy-going Quaker, or 
polite Unitarian. These are the errors that creep into 
religion. Whether God be a Quaker, or a Sprinkler, 
or a Plunger, it is of little consequence in the great 
future of true religion. God is infinite, a spirit, a man, 
or a tyrant — ^just what you choose to make him in your 
seven-by-nine creeds and dogmas. If the whole isle of 
New York was soft, malleable, and golden clay — if you 
could move it and shape it into anything that suited 
your fancy by your hand, you would doubtless under- 
take to do it, and all. the children would follow your 
example, and thus you and they would begin to make 
various forms of thought and countless toys out of the 
universal plastic substance. Your conception of the 
spirit of God is like that clay. You make all kinds of 



62 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

idols, creeds, and theologies out of the universal plastic 
substance. The spirit of God, however, being the same 
everywhere and at all times, is not thrown from its 
equilibrium by these childish forms and toys made by 
learned theologians. The tangible and intangible Grods 
and Jesuses, which are made by the cartload out of 
theology, do not disturb the Infinite heart. Mother, 
neither the Infinite mind. Father. In this light, there- 
fore, theology is an innocent error. And yet the men 
of the city of New York have spent money enough, to 
gratify these foolish idolatries, to give ninety-seven 
thousand families a comfortable home worth five thou- 
sand dollars each ! 

The early Jews, who were in many respects, by far 
the most intelligent people, maintained a distant alle- 
giance to common sense. They believed in a Jehovah; in 
one God, in no devil, and in a new Jerusalem. They 
did not exactly know whether the new Jerusalem would 
be in this world or in the next. And generally there 
was a difference of opinion upon these points. The Rab- 
bis differed widely on many religious questions, but they 
never concocted any of the monstrous errors of theology 
which have built modern churches. They had their syna- 
gogues. Their temples of religion were devoted to the 
gathering together of the people, so that they might 
sing and give full expression to their convictions of 
supernaturalism. They had their shekinahs, their image 
temples, and their decorated tabernacles ; but their 
forms were all symbolic and brim-full of spiritual mean- 
ings. They enjoyed their festivaJs and glorifications ; 
it was a pleasant way to pass the time. The same old 
forms are observed by Jews at this late age of the world. 



EXPEXSIVENESS OF ERTJOR IN RELIGION. 03 

The tinsel and paraphernalia of the New York syna- 
gogues would suit thirty-five hundred years ago. The 
plan was at first a simple organization of persons, 
believers in theocracy, for the enjoyment of religion,^ 
and not to teach a mythical theology. The first con- 
ception that formed the basic error in theology, was that 
man, by an incomprehensible fall, had lost all connection 
with the Infinite Spirit. Theologians have never tried 
to reconcile this doctrine with common sense, because it 
is never necessary in theology to have things reconciled. 
It is a proud peculiarity of the system to be superna- 
tural, which is the name for what is absurd and impos- 
sible. 

Theology began with the assumption that the human 
race was out of joint with God's will. God is repre- 
sented as being just as anxious as man was to get out 
of this state of eternal difference and conflict. It was 
necessary to turn a fable inside out, and wrong side 
foremost, in order to fix an explanation of the great 
quarrel between God and his only two children, which 
happened in a very small place called Eden. They had 
willfully diverged from the Infinite Love I Theologians 
say that God could not help it ! He must be excused 
for the straying of his two children! He was all 
benevolence and all wise. He concocted the atonement 
long before the sin was committed, knowing from the 
first that Adam and Eve would cut up just the caper 
they did in the fable. Preparations were accordingly 
made from the foundations of the world. The remedy 
was readv to be administered to all who would shut 
their eyes, open their mouths, ask no questions, and 
swallow. This is what theologians call the atonement. 



64 TnOUGIITS CONCERNING nEIJGION. 

That is a desperate and most expensive error. It is 
based on the doctrine that you are totally sinful, or that 
you are sufficiently sinful to deserve an eternal existence 
in cheap brimstone. To recover you from that dilemma, 
the atonement was prepared. By its provisions you are 
to be accepted in the kingdom of heaven, and esteemed 
worthy of that state of existence, on the merits of 
an innocent man who was made to sufler for sinners. ^ 
Such is' the machinery of error in theology. There 
is nothing of the kingdom of God in it ; there is no reli- 
gion in it. Many excellent persons suppose that their 
hope of happiness in the future is annihilated with the 
overthrow of the atonement. Thousands cling to a 
shallow error, and suppose that by faith in it, they will 
be prepared after death to enter upon the joys of the 
kingdom of peace. But thousands come back from the 
other life to tell us a very different story. What is 
necessary to make this atonement universally accepted 
and efficacious ? There is but one-third of the popula- 
tion of this globe that has any confidence in or any 
knowledge whatever of such a supernatural institution 
as the death of Jesus. Only one person in three of the 
earth's population— about 370,000,000 out of 1000,- 
000,000 — know anything about this error of theology. 
Some have heard it; some see it in the newspapers. 
Away off in China the missionaries preach this absurdity 
of superstition. They do what Bishop Colenso did, 
teach the theories of theology ; religion, pure and unde- 
filed, they do not often explain to the heathen. What, 
we again ask, would make this atonement universal and 
efficacious ? Reason will have nothing to do with such 
a theory. " Faith !" Here is the third error which 



EXPENSIVENESS OF EHROR IX EELIGION. 65 

follows of necessity the first, wlikh is the '* fall,'' and 
the second, which is the " atonement." Look at these 
churches, and look at their ministers. They arc, doubt- 
less, just as earnest in their labors and just as faithful 
to their convictions as are they who work in a better 
cause. I am satisfied that, for earnestness and honesty, 
there is nothing to choose between a Catholic, a Pro- 
testant, my brother Beecher, or my brother Tyng. They 
are as honest in their calling, and as faithful to their 
internal convictions as are less or more civilized minds. 
Toward the individuals of the different forms of faith 
I do not feel any uncharitableness. I do not believe 
that they are hypocrites and deceivers. Disreputable 
as the fact may be to their intelligence, they do believe 
earnestly in the errors of '^ theology" as well as in the 
truths of "religion.'* But theology, and not religion, is 
the origin of their churches. Tlieir religious hatreds and 
creedal antagonisms arise from theology. Hence we are 
" in duty bound" to oppose the diversal systems of 
theology as the first step toward the development of 
true religion. 

CRristians, impelled by their theology, and moved 
by their benevolence and charity, which are the best 
elements of religion, send off millions of money and 
hundreds of missionaries to carry a knowledge of 
" faith" as well as of "sin," and of the " atonement," to 
the heathen. As the person of African descent said : 
" It is an ill wind that blows nowhar." So this mis- 
sionary movement : By necessity it carries some items 
of useful education, somewhat of the impulses of civili- 
zation, more advanced habits of social life, a few notions 
about cultivating the soil, new patterns for garments. 



66 THOUGHTS CONCERNING IlELTGION. 

and several plans fox building houses and churches. It 
carries "glory" and "grog" to the heathen. The mis- 
sionary work is, therefore, associated, for the most part, 
with what is good. For these reasons men willingly 
subscribe their dollars to help the solemn-hearted mis- 
sionary on his perilous way. Although his theology is 
of no consequence, you think that possibly there may 
be something connected with the minister's family which 
may be useful and ennobling to the savages. But it 
will not do to say a great deal in that direction. We 
do not get encouraging reports from travelers. The 
flattering reports of great works among the heathen 
come through the religious papers, written by the mis- 
sionaries themselves. Of course, they give a ministerial 
report of the missionary work in which they are involved, 
and to which they have, with great self-sacrifice, con- 
secrated themselves to carry the " efficacious" errors in 
religion to the savages of the forest wild. 

What follows faith? "Regeneration.'' This is the 
climax of the theological structure. Look about you in 
society and see the original characters who have been 
born nearly two thousand years after this saving (?) 
theology was started. Who are your chief men at 
Washington ? Who are they who occupy your highest 
places to-day? Are they Spiritualists, Reformers, Pro- 
gressionists — persons who are wholly and unqualifiedly, 
publicly and privately, opposed to the absurdities of 
old theology — who have no faith in creeds and cere- 
monies ? No. They are men who are known to be 
publicly allied to the sectarian churches and to the fol- 
lies of theology ; but they are not as fully known to be 
allied to pure and undefiled religion. These public 



EXPENSIVENESS OF EKEOE IN EELIGION. 67 

men at Washing-ton are, many of them, much advanced 
in years. Some of them are dead — have you not read 
their obituaries in the papers ? — in trespasses and sins. 
The Republicans and Democrats to-day correspond to 
the publicans and sinners of the olden time. The 
American government is engineered by persons who 
openly and shamelessly profess to have adopted all the 
four errors of theology: "sin," the "atonement," 
"faith," and "regeneration.'' Somebody has been 
unkind enough to say that I am opposed to " religion." 
Does it necessarily follow, because a person is opposed 
to the forms of error in theology, that he is therefore 
opposed to pure spirituality, and opposed to what is 
good and true in religion ? Let us discriminate care- 
fully, lest we be stranded upon this rock of illogical 
reasoning and wicked prejudice. It is like the passage 
between Scylla and Charybdis — ignorance on one side, 
theology on the other. Man must steer his bark, his 
reason, his intuition, and his character between these 
dangerous obstructions on either side of the channel, or 
he will be dashed to pieces. 

Religion, without wisdom, is fanatical. It is a cru- 
sade of the sepulcher — it worships and fights for a little 
piece of ground ; it sacrifices everything to an idol. 
The simple-minded and loving-hearted nature loves to 
appeal to the Infinite Spirit. No person thinks of any 
form of faith while under the experience of devotional 
prayer. The spirit enjoys the luxury of contact, as the 
sense of smell enjoys the special fragrance of a beloved 
flower. There is little difference between the rapport 
and the spiritual gratification. When you truly approach 
the Infinite, you sensibly become part of it. The theory 



C8 THOUGHTS CONOEENING EELIGIOIT. 

of the contact is theology ; the experience of the con- 
tact is religion. Theology stands off and builds up 
a system. But when your spirit comes in contact with 
the spirit of truth, which is the spirit of fraternity and 
unity, you then know nothing of theological notions. A 
grand joy and a loving happiness thrills and fills the 
whole temple of your spirit. Then you are divinely 
warm and tender; you feel kindly and sweetly 
toward all members of the human family. You were 
vindictive, but you are now forgiving; you were angu- 
lar, but you have become harmonious. That is the 
blessing of God; the fragrance of the Infinite Flower. 
You now feel that there is nothing in the world as 
important as pure spirituality. One more step and you 
become fanatical. You believe devoutly that religion 
is the chief concern of mortals here below. From this 
abnormal state it will take but a very slight alteration 
in your mind to make a religious twaddler or ianatic. 

Because man's spiritual faculties are Iiot the whole, 
but only a part of his mental structure. Look at these 
faculties throughout the other parts and windows of the 
temple. Examine them with your reason. They mean 
something, do they not ? They have a high work to 
do, else why are they such a superior power ? Go into 
these upper chambers of your spirit, and dwell there for 
a time. Nothing is more important than the just and 
complete gratification of the desires of your spiritual 
faculties. But a religious " revival" is mostly abnor- 
mal. Methodists frequently experience the fascination 
and fanaticism thereof. The new convert is too happy 
to sleep quietly ; she gets out of bed, kneels, and prays ; 
but she cannot attend to getting the next morning's 



EXPEIs^SIYEXESS OF EKKOK IX KELIGIOX. GO 

meal. John, who is not converted, wants to go out 
early on his farm to work ; but Jane, his wife, has just 
" got religion," and cannot attend to such labors. Of 
course the potatoes in the pan are burned, and generally 
things have grown " irreligious" in the house. But 
John goes out to his work, and Jane goes into her bed. 
She prays long and devoutly ; then lies down with great 
exhaustion, and sleeps. J^resently she awakes and turns 
over the leaves of her Bible. She remembers the min- 
ister's last text. It is the first sentence that meets her 
eye ! It seems as though God himself had spoken it to 
her. It goes right to her heart. Then she remembers 
the last song that made her heart so joyous, and imme- 
diately she sets up to sing the heavenly hymn. By this 
time her excited feelings have made her very weary. 
John has just come home for supper, and there is the 
same difficulty. This folly continues about ten days. 
Thus some families get religion very bad. Now and 
then these "revivals" are attended with violent symp- 
toms which subside into imbecility. There is a vast 
space between pure religion and religious excitement. 

We come now to consider the expeusiveness of error in 
religion. We will confine our remarks to this city, say- 
ing nothing about the other great cities of superstitious 
Christendom. In the city of New York alone theolo- 
gical error has erected 33 Baptist churches, 4 Con- 
gregational, 22 Dutch Reformed, 18 Jewish Synagogues, 
7 Lutheran, 35 Methodist Episcopal churches, 5 Afri- 
can Episcopal churches, 1 Methodist Protestant, 46 
Presbyterian, 6 United Presbyterians, 56 Protestant 
Episcopal churches, (the latter being the genteelest of 
all), 31 Roman Catholic — mother and daughter you see 



70 THOUGHTS CONCEElSrmG EELIGION. 

close together — miscellaneous additional 20, and among 
the whole of them we find but three Quaker meet- 
ing-houses, two Unitarian, and four Universalist 
churches. 

Therefore we find 284 temples consecrated to error 
in religion, in New York alone ; not counting- any of 
the churches just over in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and 
Jersey City. These expensive buildings indicate what 
theology, or religious error, has erected on the island 
of Manhattan ! These temples and pagodas must have 
talented and expensive ministers, and in addition they 
have sextons, and they must, (thank heaven!) they must 
also have choirs. By calculation you will find that the 
cost of the gas per annum — and there is a great deal of 
this article used — together with the heat, and sexton's 
hire, and the excellent music for the churches, amounts 
yearly to about $500 ; the average amount of all 
expenses, in all the churches for ministers, <fec. is a little 
over $2000, for each church per year. Now suppose 
we add up the original cost of all these churches, and 
combine the interest on this sum with the annual 
expenses, for thirty years, or a generation. Salaries, 
gas, fire, sexton, and music, with interest on the first 
cost, amounts to not less than one million of dollars 
per annum ; making the aggregate expense of religious 
error for thirty, years in the city of New York more 
than thirty millions ! Now ask Dr. Spring, or any 
orthodox gentleman, how many souls have been pro- 
bably saved in the city of New York during thirty 
years, and he will shudder. For his theology says 
that only one soul in ten ever gets within sight of the 
kingdom of heaven ! 



EXPENSIYENESS OF EEKOR IN RELIGION. 71 

if homes at the rate of §5000 a piece were pur- 
chased for the poor of this continent, and given to them 
out and out, they would amount to just what New 
York sectarianism costs once in every thirty years. 
Thousands of worthy fathers and mothers with their 
families might^thus become proprietors of homes worth 
each $5000, pnd virtue and happiness would increase in 
proportion to such benevolence. Various excesseSj 
intemperance, despair, recklessness, and the thousands 
of influences that go to make up the vagrants and the 
criminals of the world, would be utterly prevented by 
the increase of the benevolence of pure and undefiled 
religion — leading to physical, spiritual, moral, and 
intellectual education, and to universal democracy and 
enrichment. Crime diminishes in proportion as people 
are lifted above the oppressive forms of poverty. 
Churches absorb immense amounts of money merely to 
give shape and form to religious errors, which the 
believers worship as truths. You know that under 
such perversities and misappropriations, crime must 
stalk through New York society, and your police sys- 
tem must be doubled and trebled as the population 
increases. 

Mankind must be brought to see that theology is 
error, and that Religion is •' pure and undefiled" and 
inexpensive ; and that to he more^ and to profess less, is 
fulfilling life's grand objects, and taking a diviner posi- 
tion in the universe. 



THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 



♦* Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,"' 

The beautifril and sublime truths imparted by the 
Harmouial Dispensation, will hereafter appear through 
lips niore touched by the Promethean fire — more 
blessed by the enchanting powers of divine eloquence. 
My mission at present seems to be to utter, in plain 
style and understandable language, new lessons in 
spiritual progress, and to explain and enforce old 
lessons in a new and more practical, useful, soul- 
exalting, body-saving form. 

I find a great many social and religious sewers in 
fashionable homes that need to be thoroughly cleansed ; 
and one to enter upon such a labor must take off kid- 
gloves and put on corduroy over-alls. And hence, 
although it is hardly the form accepted in tlie so-styled 
best circles, (where dress passes par, and truth is 
quoted at fifty per cent, discount,) yet for the accom- 
plishment of important ends in the day and hour and 
minute in which we breathe, such methods and dresses, 
and such unvarnished presentations of truth, are 
deemed expedient and appropriate. Therefore, as 
there are so many blessed witnesses to come after me, 
who will bring to you the clearly-defined pictures and 
express the highest melody of progressive truth, there 



THE world's true REDEEMER. 73 

Beems to be for me the rougher labor of laying the 
granite foundation on which the temple of strong, Tig- 
orous Freedom, and of sturdy thought, can be planted 
and erected in safety as upon the everlasting hills. 

I come before you at this time with the question, 
" Who — W/iat is the world's true Redeemer ?" 

A redeemer is one who takes up a circulation that 
has had a very wide diffusion on the credit system. 
The popular theory is that, from the first, mankind 
have been doing a credit business with the kingdom of 
heaven ; that the first thing we did as a race was to 
run into an everlasting, deadly, and diabolical debt 
with the Divine government, which is under the man- 
agement and administration of that wifeless and melan- 
choly trinity of co-equal gods — Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. Hence, according to this theorj^, the world 
needs some person, or thing, or principle, or transub- 
stantiation, to liquidate this solid and solemn condition 
of things, and thus put mankind again on " interceding 
ground" — on the basis of a possible credit and accept- 
ance at the bar of the Eternal in the heavens. 

This, I repeat, is the general theory among so- 
called Christians. In searching human history, how- 
ever, we find this popular theory to be nothing more 
than a hypothesis, based on Hebrew mythology and 
superstition. But this Hebrew mythology was origi- 
nated in a genuine spiritual perception — crude, indis- 
tinct, and unphilosophical, but a perfect truth in 
germ — that, in the great future, mankind would come 
individually to realize that they were full of imperfec- 
tions and weaknesses, and needed a saving power, a 
redemptive personage, an uplifting energy, a purifying 



74 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

principle. Thus originated the hypothesis of a per- 
sonal Savior. What was first a mere speculation, at 
last became established as a positive fact. 

The beauty and boundless catholicity of the Har- 
monial Dispensation are seen in the fact that, in freely 
and fearlessly sounding the deeps of all human history, 
its teachers come at last to accept the spiritual essence 
of all opinions in the world's religious creeds. They 
discover that in all things there is a sovereign, eternal 
truth, and their business seems to be, in part, to take 
off the coating and clear away the rubbish of the 
past — to divest history and mythology and experience 
of adhering superstitions, and thus aid to exhibit the 
majesty and harmonious perfections of the divine gov- 
ernment, in its non-supernatural, inimitable, eternal 
beauty. 

Hence we begin by rejecting the word " Redeemer,'^ 
because it is a term developed by an hypothesis which 
is in itself erroneous. We discover that mankind do 
not stand in any such debit-and-credit relation to the 
kingdom of heaven. We are not doing a day-book 
and ledger business with God and Nature. Every 
instant of time the account in the " book of life" is 
balanced. The Bible is paper, and on the church theory 
it certainly is a paper basis of credit. Politicians and 
merchants, bankers and corporations, profess to dread 
and deplore this universal expansion of paper cur- 
rency. Indeed! Then why do fhey not dread and 
equally deplore it in the religion of the world ? It is 
nothing but paper currency in the popular churches, 
and much of it is exceedingly spurious at that. Multi- 
tudes of early Scriptures were counterfeits. This fact 



THE world's true kedeemek. 75 

is inseparable from the history of all past negotiations 
on this paper basis in religion. In the Council of Nice 
the manuscripts which were rejected would make more 
than two such Bibles as are read in the churches of 
New York city. Those scriptures were repudiated as 
counterfeit representations of the real paper currency 
which it was supposed God had authorized to be dif- 
fused among mankind. On this theory the Divine 
government must have been exceedingly limited in 
suitable material for specie ! The pavements of Heaven 
must have consumed all the gold and other metal they 
had on hand. The New Jerusalem, according to that 
old opinion, was so expensive in its metallic basis and 
ornamentations that the Trinity could not afford a 
specie basis for religion and morality. Of course they 
were obliged to issue several varieties of paper cur- 
rency, and these are what men call the " Old and New 
Testaments" — legal tender notes, and notes promissory 
and on mortgages. 

Now I ask, Why not be as reasonable in religion, 
theology, and spiritual necessities, as in this common 
affair of banking and of mercantile business ? The 
answer is that men dare to use their reason, their com- 
mon sense, and their educational sense as well, in all 
matters pertaining to the actualities of outward life, 
and the same men have resolved to be as nearly con- 
summate block-heads and stumbling-blocks in matters 
of religion, as they can possibly be and still maintain a 
reputation for standing at the front of popular educa- 
tion, good manners, and good breeding. This univer- 
sal acceptance of Reason on all practical questions, and 
this universal rejection of the same sovereign power on 



76 THOUGHTS CONCEE]NING RELIGION. 

all questions in religion and spirituality, constitutes one 
of the most astonishing anomalies, one of the most con- 
summate illustrations of imbecility, that ever started 
this side of the upward " Fall" of the first human pair. 

This doctrine of doing all worldly business on what 
is termed " a paper basis" is, at the present time, quite 
unpopular. (It is not unpopular with me. I liice it, 
and believe it will supersede the metals.) But in the 
world at large the plan is beginning to be rejected. 
Consequently, one of these days the same spirit of 
" repudiation" will strike into the organizations of 
religion. Then the kingdom of heaven will be appealed 
to — through vigorous prayers — for an exhibition of its 
supposed specie basis. 

Is it not remarkable that people reject the idea of 
Progress in religion, in all the spiritual principles of 
human society, and at the same time accept it on almost 
every other subject in the domain of human life? It is 
everywhere held that man must not attempt to investi- 
gate the spiritual with his Reason. But, thank heaven ! 
Bishop Colenso has had the sublime audacity, in the 
midst of all his labors in heathendom, to make sound- 
ings down through the so-called infallible Pentateuch. 
He found and published to mankind, that the bottom 
had fallen out long before it was ever put in — that is, 
he broadly intimates that Moses is historically a myth. 
According to the history, the chronology, the mathe- 
matics of the Bible, good old Moses did not personally 
exist. But we find that in the spiritual history of the 
world the great Law-maker did live and does exist. 
This interior reality is all that is necessary for man- 
kind. It is of little consequence, for example, whether 



THE WOKLd's TRUTC REDEEMER. T7 

" Faith, Hope, and Charity," were three young women, 
excessively beautiful, in first-rate health, with fine 
digestion, good teeth, fine hair, and well acquainted 
with the wants of the human heart, or whether they 
were and are merely artistic personifications of interior 
sentiments and natural human necessities. It matters 
little ; it matters not at all. The point is this : are 
they faithful representatives of actual principles and 
needs in the constitution of the human soul ? All the 
world say " Yea," and therefore, " Hope, Faith, and 
Charity," are idolized images in our parlors — beautiful 
goddesses for the adoring soul to gaze upon — repre- 
sentatives of the internal, the eternal, and ever-present 
necessities of the human spirit — hope ^ faith, charity ! 

So Moses is related forever to the spiritual life and 
history of the human world. So is Jesus a spiritual 
fact — independent of history, mathematics, chronology, 
and the Bible. Whether they lived or did not live, is 
of little moment. It will be of little profit to persons 
who live so near the summit of the nineteenth century 
to make inquiries as to whether certain historical cha- 
racters ever lived or not. Some minds seem to think 
that, because the old systems are so pervious to the 
waves of thought and investigation, therefore old 
theology holds no essential truth. Many ministers are 
thus troubled. The miserable gentlemen ! They are 
affrighted at Bishop Colenso because they know nothing 
of essential Spiritualism. They know nothing what- 
ever of the fundamental principles of the Harmonial 
Philosophy, by which the essentials of all things are 
saved ; so that nothing worth saving is lost in history, 
theology, or mythology. If the world had more real 



78 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

intelligent, scientific spirituality in its religion — in its 
apprehensions of religion — it would never tremble if 
the bishops and priests of all countries came out en 
masse to-morrow and declared that the Bible itself, 
from end to end — in its literature, meanings, princi- 
ples, and applications — was nothing but a worthless 
" paper currency" bequeathed to mankind through the 
Jewish Rabbi and early Christian Fathers, who firmly 
believed in their own honestly mistaken judgments and 
superstitions. 

No : give men more knowledge of real spiritual 
truth, teach them of the philosophical depths of the 
immortal spirit, and they will have no more silly fears 
and hysterical tremblings lest the Bible should disap- 
pear and all Testaments be swept from the face of the 
earth. Suppose a great consuming fire should sweep 
across the prairies of the West and burn all the har- 
vests that are garnered — with their fifteen to twenty- 
five miles of wheat and corn preserved in appropriate 
buildings — would the world despair of future cereal 
harvests ? Would farmers and laborers never hope 
and believe that other corn-fields would again rustle in 
harmony with the music of the heavens ? Would 
mothers and farming-maids never again look with faitk 
for great thrift and burly health flowing up from the 
under-world, which brings in the new shocks of corn 
and fills the familiar scene with the affluence of new 
harvests? No, no! "Hope springs eternal in the 
human breast." The soul of the world would still foci 
assurance of future abundance. The summer comes, 
and with it come also those beautiful invigorating 
showers which awaken the slumbering principles of 



THE world's TKUE REDEEMER. 79 

vegetation, and once more they bring oceans of food for 
the waiting millions, and all are fed. 

So, also, if the present great spiritual and histori- 
cal criticisms should sweep violently over the earth — 
rolling like the flood of Noah, sweeping Bibles and all 
books on other subjects wholly out of the world — 
nevertheless the men and women who feel the depths 
of these spiritual truths would not for one moment 
tremble or be cast down, except, perhaps, in a passing 
sorrow for the loss of so much property, representative 
of the industry and education of the past — for it would 
indeed be saddeninsr to behold the destruction of the 
labors of those who have lived before us, and who have 
worked faithfully both night and day for years and 
centuries. The regret on this point would be deep, 
universal, and sorrowful ; but there would be no 
spiritual trembling or* vague fear ; for very soon the 
divine harvests af Ideas would come again, more 
spiritual books than ever, and far better Testaments 
of truth, would unfold on the innumerable trees of 
human life. Singular, therefore, is it not, that men do 
not seek to comprehend and apply the law of Progress 
in their theologies and religion ? It is because they 
fear, from the mere influence of their education, to use 
that sublimest power, the harmony of all the facul- 
ties — Reason. 

If there was ever a flower from the soil of heaver- 
planted in the garden of the human soul, blooming with 
an ever-increasing beauty and with an eternal fra- 
grance, it is Reasox. Men instinctively dread the 
absence of it in their children and in themselves ; but 
nothing human ever dreads pr deplores its presence. 



80 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

The most reasonable person is the one you are inclined 
to love most. Reason always implies harmony of the 
faculties, for it receives happy contributions from all 
of the affections and sentiments. Reason, in this high 
sense, does not merely mean the power to think and 
talk logically from premises to conclusion, or legiti- 
mately to go in reflection from the outside to the center. 
It means the power to see not only outward facts, but 
the essential principles, also, by which alone the real 
significance of the facts can be comprehended. It is 
the German method. It begins at the heart of things, 
with fundamental Nature — is deductive, and goes thence 
outwardly, like God, through all the infinite spaces. 
God does not live and think on the surface of the uni- 
verse as Bacon did. The Divine is not strictly an 
inductive philosopher. Every man of reason and- every 
vroman of intuition knows that God is in the deepest 
Heart — an inexhaustible fountain of Love, as well as 
of Wisdom — expanding through all that illimitable 
structure which we call " the physical universe." / 

Now God's method of living in the universe is the 
method of Reason in mankind. Rooting itself in Intui- 
tion, starting up with the lightning flash of thought, 
and with often an inexpressible conviction of what is 
and what is not true — such is Reason, blooming over 
the summits of the thinking and contemplative facul- 
ties — the first born, the last born — the perfect grouping 
of all the elements and attributes that go to make up 
the imm.ortal human mind. 

And yet men dare not trust Reason in religion ! 
Behold how all the pulpitarians and crabsterians use 
Reason to prove that Reason is not to be trusted ! Go 



THE would' S TEUE EEDEE:MER. 81 

to our logical clergymen — many of them arc tolerably 
well-educated in logic — and hear how they habitually 
employ Reason, almost like thoroughly trained law- 
yers, to prove that Reason is most treacherous and 
unreasonable, and that it is unworthy of consultation in 
the presence of the Word of God ! 

Now I stand before you to announce the necessity 
of progress in the world's religion, and hence my sub- 
ject is : " The World's True Redeemer/' 

I. In the first place I afi&rm that there is implanted 
in man a natural desire for knowledge. Men say that 
true human education did not begin until Christianity 
was perfectly established. It is astonishing that they 
dare so assert, when it is known that Egypt and 
Greece blossomed with institutions of learning, which 
have not been exceeded by anything educational in the 
present century — only we have more of it diffused 
among the people, and hence have made great progress 
in the adaptation of true education to human necessi- 
ties. But in the fundamental germs of enlightenment 
and civilization the world was largely supplied centu- 
ries before Christianity was established. 

I repeat, men desire Knowledge. They have an 
implanted desire to know more ; they dread ignorance, 
and they repel with indignation that which is a recog- 
nized discredit to the Reason with which they are 
endowed, i know a perfectly honest, healthy, splen- 
did-looking, wealtliy proprietor of many whale-ships,. 
who very frequently blushes because he is not educated. 
He began in the cabin, next went before the mast, and 
then became second mate, and so on and up until he 
went as sole master of his vessel. At last he became 



82 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

the proprietor of many whaling-ships and store-houses. 
He staid at home in his comfortable mansion by the 
Bea, and saw his many ships sail out and return to port, 
bringing him wealth and luxury ; but he knew nothing 
of French, nothing of Greek and Hebrew, and so he 
fancied, as he was not educated in spiritual principles, 
that he was shamefully destitute of education. He had 
never acquired the power of flourishing his pen, so that 
he could not even write his own name very well. But 
that man was most trustworthy. He was the trusted 
friend of every man who needed his assistance and his 
benefactions. Still he would not accept the smallest 
public office in his native town, nor assist in adjusting 
public affairs, just because he was consciously deficient 
in the rudiments of Education. So he blushed and 
remained at home, or rode quietly out in his carriage, 
looking equal to any man that w;ilks in the halls of 
Congress. Thus the wealthy sailor lived, and at last 
went completely out of sight in the midst of great accu- 
mulations of wealth — all because he knew that he was 
not educated ! I relate this case to show that people 
naturally repel ignorance, and that most persons blush 
when they know that they are not well-informed and 
accomplished. It is a voice illustrating the natural 
desire of the human heart for Knowledge. 

Now who shall say that Knowledge shall not travel 
into religious matters, as well as into navigation, into 
matters of business, into the banking arrangements, 
chemistry, the actual or the speculative sciences '? The 
desire for Knowledge with reference to spiritual things 
is just as powerful as the desire to know anything with 
reference to other departments of human interest. I 



THE WOELd's TKTJE REDEEMER. 83 

think this question answers itself in every man's intui- 
tion. 

II. In the second place I mention that man has a 
natural desire to make his knowledge Useful. He 
craves and seeks to acquire natural and useful Know- 
ledge. When a boy sees a pair of skates, he wishes to 
know how he can use them. If he sees a ball, he wants 
to know how he can play with it'; if a hook and line, 
to know how he can fish with them. So with the man. 
When he comes to recognize the facts of Science, or the 
development of these great discoveries in the world, he 
yearns to grasp them at once with the hand of Use. 
Why not carry that desire for Use into Religion ? 
Why shall we not make our knowledge in spiritual 
things useful ? The question answers itself. We can 
and we must. It is the inevitable tendency of the soul 
of every born human being to outgrow ignorance and 
to commence the investigation of spiritual truths. 
Mankind must make intelligent incursions through all 
these temples of ignorance, and error, and supersti- 
tion — and over them, and through them, and in the 
midst of their demolition — he must acquire useful 
knowledge in spiritual and religious truths. 

III. In the third place I will mention that man has 
a natural desire to be consistent in his Knowledge. He 
desires this jewel above all, in order to show the world 
that he knows the true use of his Knowledge, and to 
show that his use. of it is exactly logical and every- 
where intelligent and symmetrical. If a man knows a 
spiritual truth, he wants to make a consistent applica- 
tion of it. If he knows a scientific truth, he wishes 
also to be consistent with that. 



84 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

This illustrates the intimacy with which one kind 
of knowledge is connected with another. If a man 
knows something of anatomy, he longs for a little phy- 
siology to make his anatomical science not only useful, 
but consistent ; and if he has a knowledge of physi- 
ology he says : " Now, chemistry is really necessary to 
make my physiology at once useful and consistent." So 
he goes into chemical questions and investigates as far 
as his opportunities and prejudices will permit. If he 
gets interested deep enough in chemistry, he begins to 
look at the matter with a still broader view, and he 
says, " I must make these things useful in my daily life. 
I must show that I have real and positive knowledge. 
And, in order to make that exhibition indisputable, I 
must give it expression in my duties, in my daily avo- 
cations, and in my worldly career.'' 

This illustrates the desire of the human to be con- 
sistent. In the Churches, both ministers and their 
followers plant themselves on certain principles or 
premises, and each one says : " I must reason correctly 
from my fundamental propositions." If a clergyman 
believes in the Trinity, his doxology at the end of the 
sermon and hymn will always be a logical conclusion 
from his creed. If the minister believes in eternal pun- 
ishment, he will conduct himself like Henry Ward 
Beecher, who, although naturally anxious to discard 
the trammels of old theology, will, nevertheless, per- 
haps at the end of evi-iy third week's sermon bring out 
a logical hell-fire conclusion in harmony with an 
education received from his earthly father's orthodox 
premises. 

This desire to be "consistent," too often allies 



THE world's true REDEEMER. 85 

itself with the Satan of Pride. Some men having com- 
mitted themselves openly and above board to certain 
fundamental opinions in politics or in religion, are 
actuated by the feelings of pride, so much so that they 
cannot be honorably open and simple-minded enough 
to know where or what a new truth is. They desire to 
stand by the old, and not to budge. They cling to the 
time-worn falsehood very strongly ; for they design to 
show, by their adhesion to it, that they have indubita- 
ble evidence that they are not mistaken. Thus Mr. 

H , a flourishing merchant of this city, in conversa tion 

in Williamsburg several years ago, said to me that he 
was "a believer in total depravity." Then came the 

question: "What are your evidences, Mr. H ?" 

He answered by enumerating human evils, piling evi- 
dence upon evidence taken from history, quoted the 
crimes of society, the sins of individual men, &c., &c. 
Then we conversed concerning the hereditary and cir- 
cumstantial causes of those evils and iniquities. 

At length he yielded the point somewhat, and said : 
" Well, to be sure, special circumstances and lack of 
balance in phrenological organization, deficiency in the 
strength of will to resist evil, and various temptations, 
which flow in from the outside world upon the person, 
no doubt do explain away the intentional cause of 
many evils and vices ;" and so he measurably yielded 
the point that the human heart was not totally de- 
praved, seeing that so many iniquities and evils came 
from the sphere of conditions and circumstances. 

" Well,'' said I, " Mr. H , where now is your 

evidence?" That unfortunate question at once re- 
minded him of his position, and also aroused his pride 



86 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. ^ 

of logical consistency, and said he : "I have, Mr. 
Davis, an unfailing evidence of total depravity." 

" Indeed ?" " Yes." " Well, Mr. H , where do 

you find that unfailing evidence ?" " In my own heart, 
Mr. Davis.'' 

I told him I admired the self-sacrificing spirit he 
manifested, but I detested the pride which caused him 
to do it; for he probably knew that he owned as good 
a heart as anybody, and it was not true that he went 
to his heart to find " total depravity.'' It was the ambi- 
tious desire to be " consistent" — the Devil of Pride — 
that held him to his first propositions. The imp of 
darkness thus shut down the vail over the good man's 
eyes, so that he dared not see the higher and more 
simple truth with all its rosy splendor. And so he 
became the zealous editor of the Churchman. His un- 
failing evidence of total depravity was simply the sac- 
rifice of his own mind to his own avowed theory. He 
would rather stand before me a self-acknowledged 
spiritual criminal than to say that he really had no 
absolute evidence of total depravity. 

Now the world is just in this condition of pride and 
fear with reference to the Trinity, or the doctrine of 
eternal punishments. The people and priests have not 
yet simple, spiritual, and interior childhood enough to 
acknowledge that facts, heretofore accepted, are per- 
fectly invalidated by new scientific and historic evi- 
dence. They are not large enough to receive the new 
truth, and to welcome it, as happy mothers receive the 
new-born child. 

Men love, in their pride, to be " consistent." But 
in such passion they make great life-long mistakes. If 



, THE world's tkue redeemick. 87 

I had labored to be logical and "consistent" in any of 
my discourses, no doubt I should have been, if possible, 
less useful to you than I have. It is a remarkable iact 
that I have sometimes attempted to teach you, but at 
the end of the Lecture I found, not unfrequently, that 
I knew much more than when I began, and was, per- 
haps, more benefited and more instructed tlian any 
other person. It was because a new phase of a great 
principle had been revealed to the interior, showing me 
that my internal life was still sensitively awake to the 
New, and that I was and am not wedded foolishly and 
indissolubly to the past, either personal or general. 

Now I wish to call your attention to the points 
gained in this discourse: First. Internal desire for 
Knowledge ; secondly, for Useful Knowledge ; and 
thirdly, for Consistent Knowledge. 

What is it in man that thirsts for knowledge ? 
This inquiry answers itself in this way — that the har- 
mony of all the faculties and attributes in the human 
soul constitutes what we call Wisdom. The Author of 
that harmony is also the Author of Wisdom. Persons 
who are yet not harmonized in spiritual principles, have 
only glimmering intuitions of Wisdom. It means the 
axis of the human mind coming to a parallel, so to say, 
in the plane of its orbit, with reference to the harmony 
of Deity. The unity of man's spirit with God's spirit 
is felt instantly when the fullness of wisdom is reached. 
It is the new birth. You then feel that your spirit is 
attuned to the harmony of eternal principles. The 
harmony of love shows you at once that you are part 
of an indestructible Brotherhood. Y«ur partialities 
and jealousies die down, your little feelings and selfish 



88 THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 

traits depart, and the spirit of Fraternal Love, like the 
dove that went forth from the Ark, wings its way from 
your soul towards every son and daughter of the world. 
If you can rise to a feeling of that kind even once in a 
month, you have evidence that a new birth is taking 
place within you. 

Furthermore, when you rise to see that the law of 
gravity is not merely physical, but spiritual also ; that 
the laws that regulate mechanism and chemistry are 
spiritual as well as physical and mathematical, then 
you have attained to some perception of Wisdom. 

Wisdom sounds througii the physical and reaches to 
the profound depths where God sleeps and wakes every 
instant of time. 

The penetration of the chemist is but a physical 
approach to the interior of things. He will take a sub- 
stance into the laboratory and analyze it. He arrives 
at its constituents and names them; and they are thus 
marked and classified. And he finds that, by recombi- 
nations, they make this, that, and the other substance. 
But just where the chemist leaves oft", the soundings of 
Wisdom commence. The chemist fails to touch the 
vital principle by which constituents are united to 
make the various compounds. He knows that he fails 
to reach the point where spirit moves the body, and so 
he goes once more to the threshold of inquiry. When 
he arrives at that place he stops short, but Wisdom hos- 
pitably opens the door into the vestibule of the immor- 
tal temple, just at this particular critical point ; and 
thus, where the chemist, with his material methods of 
probing and analyzing, must, per force of his material 
methods, cease, there the penetrative spiritual philo- 



.. g9 



THE WOKLD S TRUE KEDEEMTOK. 

sopher commences his investigations. And thence he is 
led out through an infinitude of spirit culture. 

Wisdom commences, I say, just where Science fails 
in its power to go. You know there are persons who all 
the time are in bondage to the sense. They behold gravi- 
tation, but to them the law itbclf is physical. Look at 
our material orthodox clergymen. They read the 
ponderous religious quarterlies — or the monthlies — 
which are lumbering and tediously elephantine in the 
treatment of things ; what kind of knowledge have 
they ? Talk with the most learned of these gentlemen, 
who day after day visit our best public libraries — men 
who dig through the great volumes that come across 
the Atlantic — and you will see how utterly destitute 
they are of internal perceptions of scientific and philo- 
sophic truths. Being without knowledge in these mat- 
ters, many of them are skeptics ; and although they 
attend church Sunday after Sunday, and go through all 
the forms, yet in their judgments they have no faith 
either in theology or religion. 

The world's true Redeemer is Wisdom, because 
it passes through the dress to that which is essential, 
to the spirit through the body, to the life witliin the 
law, to the science within the substance ; and not only 
so, but makes all of its discoveries at once consistent^ 
useful^ and desirable. But Wisdom seems, to most 
people, to be vague and abstract. Men do not see how 
they can put the teachings of Wisdom into operation. 
Well, then, let us see if we cannot make this truth use- 
ful, consistent, and practical. 

Wisdom recognizes, as a central principle, the 
balance of things — the equilibrium of forces, the adapt- 



90 THOUGHTS CONCEBNING EELIGION. 

ation of one substance to another, of one force to 
another, of a fish to the water, of a bird to the air, of 
light to the eye, of sound to the ear, of flavors to the 
taste, of odors to the sense of smell, of substances to 
the touch, and so on throughout the whole system. 

What is the image we see represented in poetry and 
in art on this subject ? The image is Justice. She 
holds the scales, which represent equality of propor- 
tion. Justice is the central law. It is recognized as 
the finest, most universal, and the highest expression 
of the Infinite Mind. The entire harmony of the planet- 
ary worlds, by which the stars move on in their sub- 
lime courses, never varying from the moment the 
pyramids were built to the present hour ! — in all these 
splendid, vast, and incomprehensible systems, which 
make up the heavens — comets burning their way 
through space, crossing each other's paths beautifully, 
like well-trained dancers waltzing on lines most 
familiar to their minds ; and the planets, too, moving 
on like respectable citizens in the high walks of the 
sidereal heavens — all in never-changing harmony with 
the original design. What causes that ? It is what 
Wisdom recognizes as God's central law — Justice. 

Bring it to the person, and what does it do? 

It gives us the two hands, two feet, two depart- 
ments to the brain, two eyes, two ears — doubleness, 
duality throughout — all expressions of God's central 
law, Justice. The foot cannot repel the head, nor the 
head the foot. The cerebrum cannot repel the cere- 
bellum, the cerebellum cannot do without the cerebrum. 
Love warms Reason ; Reason cannot exist and flourish 
without Love. How is it that a m.an can raise his 



TDE world's true EEDEEMEK. 01 

arm ? It is done by the laws of contraction and expan- 
sion — the "two systems in harmony with each other. 
Justice breathes throughout all the system. 

Again, we find in the world what is called warmth — 
red warmth — warmth which is mellow, which is pene- 
trative, invigorating, and expanding. Wherever you 
find balance, you find warmth. What is it ? It is God's 
central principle — Love. Not the physical universe, 
but that which gives us a physical universe, is naturally 
full of warmth, flowing from the center through all 
the minutest ramifications of the system — Love. 

Now what is this all-pervading Love ? Is it a Love 
which stops with a substance ? Does it exist only in 
one heart ? Does it take no interest in anything out- 
side of itself? You know that the selfish love of the 
spirit brings no happiness to itself. Its happiness 
comes from its dependence upon the corresponding love 
of another, then the two depend upon a third, and the 
three upon a fourth, and the four upon the existence of 
the whole world Avithout. 

The system of human life and society is entirely 
dependent. One part is warmed by contact with 
another, and the heat is expanded and removed accord- 
ing to the principle of equilibrium. This is the divine 
Love. It is central with Nature, just as Justice is cen- 
tral with Deity. 

Deity and Nature are counterparts, equals, and. 
compeers; they are husband and wife, father and mo- 
ther, wisdom and love, and are perpetually bearing 
children. The warmth and tlie balance go hand iii 
hand, arm in arm, their arms about each other's necks, 
working without discord through the illimitable spaces. 



92 THOUGHTS COITCEEITING EELTGION. 

Hence Love, which is not limited and selfish, and 
Justice, when married, constitute loving-justice — the 
best practical definition of the world's true Redeemer. 

Justice without Love is the sun without heat — with- 
out its power to fertilize, and beautify, and adorn the 
world; and the world without its Justice would be the 
sun with only heat, that would burn, and parch, and 
consume, and destroy all things. The balance of the 
universe itself would be destroyed, so that where har- 
mony dwelt, discord and conflagration would prevail. 
Thus it would be in a world full of Love, of warmth, 
but without Justice and light. 

Try this principle in your homes. I know a young 
man in one of the avenues of this city who has been so 
petted and caressed by an over-loving mother — a ma- 
ternal soul, who had Love in abundance, but not a 
corresponding sense of Justice — and that misdirected 
son is now the source of her daily anxieties and moment- 
ary miseries. She is every week put on the cross, and 
is sorely tried like one pulled joint by joint on the rack 
of torture. Why ? Because when a little baby and a 
child he had all things given him that he wanted ; 
never was practically instructed by Justice to recognize 
the rights of another child. Justice was left out of her 
Love. Thus the little one came up under the arms of ma- 
ternal warmth ; and this very day that son, now a young 
man in the city of New York, is carrying poignards and 
stilettos in his disposition. He is to his mother a ser- 
pent that was nurtured in a house full of Love without 
corresponding Justice. 

Try this principle with vegetations of any kind. 
Let them have the warmth which the sun might give., 



THE WOELd's TKUE REDEEMER. 1)3 

but without its regulating, adjusting, and balancing 
power, and soon you will find that the beautilul plants 
and harvests would disappear, crisped, parched, and 
destroyed, because the sun had not giA-en down its cool- 
ing and harmonizing power, Avhich would bring 
balance, and equilibrium, and proportion, and beauty, 
and symmetry, as well as the all-important results of 
warmth. I think you perceive that the world's true 
Savior is loving-justice, and that Wisdom is the 
apprehending and applying faculty. 

How necessary it is that men should apply this 
principle throughout. I will not detain you at tliis 
time by describing its influence in the various depart- 
ments of human interests. If, for example, these 
fashionable ladies could be made to see the injustice of 
their styles, with reference to other equally good ladies 
who are circumstantially unfortunate, they would not 
be guilty of another departure from wisdom. These 
fashion-ladies have been brought up under the warmth 
and wealth of the heart, without the cooling, regulat- 
ing, and equalizing principle of social Justice. They 
have learned their arts from Mother Nature ; but they 
have none of the wisdom of Father God. 

So they are all fashionable ladies ! They go to the 
churches. They would not attend a Progressive Meet- 
ing, lest it might impress an everlasting spot upon 
their reputations ! And yet they do openly and un- 
blushingly that which, I believe not a lady in this cause 
would do. There is in nearly all they do a terrible 
wrong, which badly aftects the domestic who gets the 
dinner, and the boy who serves at the table, and still 
worse, the children, who are readiest to imitate the 



94 THOUGHTS CONCERNIjSTG RELIGION. 

conduct of adults. I attended a party on one occa- 
sion where there were forty ladies exquisitely arrayed 
ill the fashionable dresses of the day. By a careful com- 
putation I made out exactly 720 yards of silk and satin 
and costly brocade. Think of it, ye Christians ! Seven 
hundred and twenty yards of most expensive cloth, on 
forty New York church-going women ! I have also seen 
a party of forty faithful and industrious women, who had 
scarcely ten yards over the mere necessities of passable 
dress. They had scrimped themselves to just that pat- 
tern which was necessary for co'nvenience — of course 
according to the style, so as not to be peculiar and 
conspicuous ; but the calico they wore was way down 
in price, and they were ashamed to appear among the 
finely dressed. Yet these costly pagodas, these fashion- 
able religious temples, are flashing and sparkling with 
Stewart's iniquities. Alas ! they have not yet heard the 
central gospel of God — Justice — down in the heart deep 
enough to regulate their habits and characters. There- 
fore, with all their religious professions, they are not 
friendly to the kingdom of righteousness. 

Finally, I suggest to clergymen and to all teachers 
of public morals that they at once abandon the vicious 
doctrine of the vicarious atonement, as well as the 
preaching of all other mythological methods of getting 
rid of sin and evil, and come immediately on to the 
everlasting basis of loving-justice — the world's true 
Redeemer. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



" The original 



Of all things is one thing. Creation is 
One whole. The differences a mortal sees 
Are diverse only to the finite mind." 

The cheerful, yet solemn subject, announced for this 
morning, should have attracted the editorial staff of 
«' The World,'^ but it is more remarkable that there are 
not present editors of other and more loyal sheets who 
take an interest in the end of the " world.'' 

My subject is the great question that frequently 
agitates thousands of honest religionists. In treating 
upon this subject I remark : 

First, That the human mind begins to reason by 
taking a literal view of everything, whether spiritual or 
material. Its first apprehensions are confined strictly 
to the apparent — to what appears — to the seeming. 
Wisdom, mounting on the wings of untrammeled Ideal- 
ity, penetrates to that which lives within. This state 
of mind judges "not from appearances, but with a 
righteous judgment" — that is, from the core outwardly, 
and 710^ from the mere husk, burr, clothing, protection, 
appearance, or representation ; thus wisdom renders an 
infallible verdict concerning that which is interior, 
spiritual, and eternal. To think or reason sensuously, 
is an error — a mistake — which is scarcely reprehensi- 



96 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

ble, hardly blameworthy, because it is the inevitable 
step of the human mind when beginning its progress in 
experience, thought, wisdom, and intuition. 

Hence there prevails a universal externalism among 
crude religionists with regard to the "End of the 
World." There are scores of persons, who, judging 
from the Bible sentences, fancy they read the fiery 
doom of the physical universe. All who live and move 
and have a being within the world, save " God and his 
holy angels," are marked down for a resurrected 
destruction. " His holy angels," according to the 
theory, will be manufactured out of certain earthly 
religionists, as their eternal reward for having believed 
the delectable creed in advance of their skeptical neigh- 
bors, even though the latter class may be respectable 
members of popular churches. The holy and sacred 
class are called " Second Adventists" — very pugna- 
cious, warm-headed, discussionary characters, energetic 
and truth-loving, over-fond of debate — especially from 
a literal apprehension of the teachings of the Testa- 
ments. Taking the sensuous interpretation as the basis 
of all their reasoning, they have erected a system of 
theologic thought (based wholly upon literal apprehen- 
sions,) which they imagine logically leads — mathemati- 
cally, prophetically, figuratively, and according to the 
biblical almanac — directly to a tragical and chemical 
termination of the physical world in which sinners now 
live. They fancy that they recognize the prophecy to 
be straight from God — of course through the mediation 
of the old prophets — and think that Christ announced 
the same awful fact whenever he spoke of the " end of 
the world." Beholding this unbroken chain of an- 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 97 

nouDcement, this concatenation of prophecies, this 
unmistakable literalization of the promises of God, the 
Adventists naturally work themselves up to belieye 
that, in a very short time, the dissolution of the globe 
alid the end of all physical things will surely come to 
pass. All this religious imagination is based on the 
fact that the mind first takes a literal view of ancient 
spiritual writings. It is the mind's first step in theology, 
in spirituality, as in everything else it encounters on 
the road of progressive thought, experience, and 
wisdom. 

The next step the mind takes as it expands from 
intuition, is a figurative view of the Bible language. 
Minds in this state apprehend that the old prophets and 
the new apostles spoke in metaphors, wrote emblematic- 
ally, with great opulence using figurative expressions. 
Bible-believers, thus thinking, throw off the literal 
letter and the materialistic conception, and swim out 
into the open sea of pictorial and figurative interpreta- 
tion. They now seek for examples, correspondences, 
contrasts, and analogies. Svvedenborg, for illustration, 
being both a scientific thinker and a philosophical reli- 
gionist, started more systematically to give to all figura- 
tive, emblematic, metaphoric, and symbolic expressions, 
the basis and dignity of a Science — reducing, in his 
own opinion, all scriptural externalisms to an intelligi- 
ble spiritual account. His principle of translation was 
something more than analogy, something more than 
mere comparison, something different from the purely 
figurative, something different from the symbol — it was 
what he called the " Science of Correspondence" — 
meaning that the internal of an object, person, thought, 



08 TnouoriTS ooxcekning religion. 

affection, subject, or thing, is always represented in its 
externals, and vice versa ; that while a sheep will rep- 
resent nothing but a sheep to the exte7mal eye looking 
over the fence into the field, at the same time to the eye 
of the spiritual mind the sheep naturally represents and 
really seems to be nothing but the sentiment or princi- 
ple of innocerxe. De Guay, in his " Letters [No. XII] 
to a Man of the World," gives the following familiar 
examples : " The ea7'th in general corresponds to man ; 
its different productions, which serve for the nourish- 
ment of men, correspond to different kinds of goods 
and truths — the solid aliments to various kinds of 
goods, and the liquid to various kinds of truths. A 
house corresponds to the will and the understanding, 
which constitute the human mind: by house we here 
understand all that serves for lodging or retreat, the 
palace as well as the hut. Garments correspond to 
truths or falses, according to the substance, color, and 
form, which they present. Animals correspond to the 
affections ; those which are useful and gentle to good 
affections, those which are hurtful and bad to evil 
affections; gentle and beautiful birds to intellectual 
truths, those which are ferocious and ugly to falses ; 
fishes to the scientifics which derive their origin from 
things sensual; rep/z7e5 to corporeal and sensual plea- 
sures; and noxious insects to falsities which proceed 
from the senses. Trees and ^Arwi^ correspond to differ- 
ent kinds of knowledges ; and herbs and grass correspond 
to various kinds of scientific truths. Gold corresponds 
to celestial good, silver to spiritual truth, brass to 
natural good, iron to natural truth, stoiies to sensual 
truths, precious stones to spiritual truths." 



THE END or THE WOKLD. 99 

So Swedeiborg goes through the mystic sphere of 
psYcho-scieDtific research, and succeeds in reducing the 
whole Bible, or at least so much of it as, according to 
his superior illumination, was correspondentially writ- 
ten, to a consistent system of interior interpretation. 
It must strike every one as evident that the Swedish 
Seer ever and anon struck the core of Divine fruit on 
the biblical trees ; almost every second step he planted 
his foot on the basis of everlasting truth. If he had 
struck solid ground every time, the world would find in 
him an infallible ?>eacher. Unfortunately for him, per- 
haps, but unquestionably fortunate for the human 
millions, Swedenborg touched spiritual truth just unfre- 
quently enough to convince many persons who read 
him that he was not infallible. Those who look at this 
question independently, see that, although it is very 
easy to think and say that a duck corresponds to a 
doctor of medicine and a goose to a doctor of divinity, 
still the so-called science is obviously arbitrary, and 
may not be true universally. For your spiritually- 
minded brother in Scotland, looking at the duck, may 
not think of seeing therein represented " a doctor of 
medicine," and not always in the goose a " doctor of 
divinity ;" on the contrary, these twaddling birds or 
gawky fowls may represent very different affections, 
thoughts, persons, or professions, and may continue 
through all time to suggest something different from 
Swedenborg's meaning. And yet I hesitate not to say 
that the *' Science of Correspondence'* is the closest 
approach to a great discovery in the substantial sense 
of spiritual communications recorded in the Old and 
New Testaments. 



100 THOUGHTS CONCEEOTjSTG RELIGION. 

But there have been, and are, persons who have 
conceived that, inasmuch as there was a spirituul sense 
tucked away in the literal Word, so it would be unfair 
if there could not be found a celestial sense still mora 
concealed within the spiritual. These ambitious souls 
also think that it would be unfair for an hundred years 
to pass away without producing some " celestial seer'' 
who could out-Swedenborgianize the Word. Among 
Spiritualists there is, or has been, a person who thinks 
and professes to believe that he has seen 2i finer sense in 
the Bible than Swedenborg saw, rippling all the way 
through from Genesis to Revelations. His first ambi- 
tious installment— "the Arcana of Christianity" — haa 
been published. 

On the same principle, and by parity of reasoning, 
you may apprehend that some other person will, by and 
by, arrogate the discovery of a " heavenly sense" as 
superior to the celestial ; and yet another who would 
say that there was a " deific sense" superior to the 
heavenly, and so the absurdity might flow on ad infini- 
tum. The reasoning is deceptive and sophistical. They 
take for granted what remains to be established. Thus : 
Since the literal sense of your Bible is extinguished, 
since the spiritual sense is not sufficient, and since the 
celestial sense is already exhausted, is it not necessary 
now, in order to have the celestial sense perfectly com- 
prehended, to cap it all with the climacteric discovery 
of God's own mind ? I believe that no such religious 
fanaticism will ever appear in a healthy human 
mind. Such an ambition could be nothing less than a 
parasitical development on the healthy faculties of hu- 
man reason. Let us hope and pray that such religious 



THE END OF THE WOELD. 101 

monstrosities will never appear in the course of modern 
spiritual development and philosophic growth. 

Let me now ask your attention to the universal fact 
that the internal and the external of all things are 
married, and do literally correspond to and represent 
each other; that what is true in the external, in any- 
thing, anywhere, is equally true of the internal in the 
same thing and place. Hence there cannot be such a 
thing as a religious truth which is incompatible or 
inconsistent with a scientific or a philosophic discovery 
in a corresponding department. There can be no 
incompatibility, no antagonism, between what religion- 
ists call a " revealed and natural religion." Paul has 
fully shown this ; others have demonstrated it ; and no 
man can escape the laws and logic of Eeason. The 
changeless God who " built the palace of the sky," and 
talks to men through various mediators, could do no 
incohesive deed, could speak no inconsistent word ; but, 
when understood, both the Deed and the Word univer- 
sally harmonize as do fellow-notes when speaking in the 
highest music. 

This statement is the internal conviction of the 
world ; the intuition of all peoples, both Heathen and 
.Christian. If the people of Christendom would take 
those documents, which, bound together, are called the 
" Old and New Testaments," as simply and only a por- 
tion of the spiritually-written word of God, and hos- 
pitably accept the scriptures of all heathen nations with 
just as much reverence, and see that God spoke through 
Ihem all, even as he speaks through the organization and 
habits of the meanest ivorm that ever crawled in mud, 
as through the beauty and perfections of the highest 



103 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

seraph that ever sung under the finite sun, then indeed 
would the earth rejoice in gladness ; for all religionists 
and Spiritualists would be enlarged and ennobled by 
the presence and influence of perpetual and universal 
inspirations. 

But, on the other hand, confine all authoritative 
inspirations to a stereotyped volume — excluding all 
God's words to the Chaldeans, Arabians, Chinese, and 
the other nations who in past times have received truths 
from the same inexhaustible Divine source — do this, as 
Christians do, and you exclude golden sunlight, pure 
air, blissful health, and impartial wisdom from you ; 
and, in consequence, you become miserable automatons 
of a fashionable, popular, and outrageously expensive 
religion, full of dried creeds and dead men's bones. 

The application of the principle announced would 
be this ; Just what is true in the world of science, we 
shall find equally true in the social world ; what is true 
in the social world, we shall find equally true in the 
world of politics ; what is true in the world of politics, 
we shall find equally true in the world's laws and 
governments ; what is true in outward governments, 
will be found equally true in the internal history of par- 
ticular races ; and what is true in all these, will be 
found equally true in the geology of the globe and the 
destiny of the human family ; what is true in geology 
and the destiny of the aggregation of persons, you will 
find equally, intimately, delicately, eternally true in 
every single component part of your mental existence] 

Geology — a scientific knowledge of the earth — has 
been practically born within the last quarter of the 
present century. It has already arisen to the com- 



THE EXD OF THE WOELD. 103 

manding position of the wisest commentary that was 
ever written on book-religion. It is this day the pro- 
foundest expounder and pounder of Genesis; for the 
authority of the book and the source of the authority 
have dropped out long ago to those who have had the 
industry, independence, and talent to investigate. Per- 
haps, in this connection, it may be best to glance at the 
outlines of the harmonial philosophy of creation in the 
physical Universe. 

The great original, ever-existing, omniscient, om- 
nipotent, and omnipresent productive power — the Soul 
of all existences — is throned in a central sphere, the 
circumference of which is the boundless universe, and 
around which solar, sidereal, and stellar systems, 
revolve in silent, majestic sublimity and harmony ! This 
power is what mankind call Deity, whose attributes are 
love and wisdom, corresponding with the principles of 
male and female, positive and negative, creative and 
sustaining. 

The first goings forth or out-births from this great 
celestial Center, are spiritual or vital suns. These, 
after due elaboration or gestation, give birth to natural 
suns — those that become cognizable to the outward or 
natural senses of man. These again become centers, 
or mothers, from which earths are born, with all the 
elements of matter, and each minutest particle infused 
with the vivifying, vitalizing spirit of the parent Forma- 
tor. The Essences of heat or fire — electricity, galvan- 
ism, magnetism — are all the natural or outward mani- 
festations of the productive energy, the vitalizing Cause 
of all existences. It pervades all substances and ani- 
mates all forms. 



104 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

The Progress of Formation is from the lower to 
the higher, from the crude to the refined, from the simple 
to the complicated, from the imperfect to the perfect — 
but in distinct degrees or congeries. That is, the lower 
must first be developed, to elaborate the materials, and 
prepare the way for the higher. Thus, after the sun 
gave birth to the earth — and the same of all other 
planets — the action of the vitality within the particles 
of matter, and its constant emanation in the form of 
heat, light, electricity, &c. — first from the great Cen- 
tral sphere to the sun, and thence to the earth, acting 
upon the granite and other rocks, with the atmosphere, 
the water, and other compound and simple elements — 
then new compounds were formed, possessing this vital 
principle in sufficient quantities to give definite forms, 
as crystallization, organization, motion, life, sensation, 
intelligence — the last being the highest or ultimate 
attribute of production on our earth, and possessed or 
reached to perfection only by man. 

A glance at the progress of creation, in the produc- 
tion of our earth and its inhabitants, will serve as an 
illustration of the same process and progress of worlds 
in the vast expanse of the universe, that are perpetually 
and continually being brought into existence, and ulti- 
mating the grand object of the whole — namely, to 
develop and perfect individualized, self-conscious, ever- 
existing, immortal spirits, that shall be in the "image 
and likeness" of the Central Cause, and dwell forever 
in the Summer Spheres. 

I will now describe the process of the earth's ori- 
gin. Within the circumference of the sun, elementary 
particles of matter gather around a nucleus, which con- 



THE EXD OF THE WOKLD. 



105 



tinues to aggregate and increase in dimension and 
variety of parts, in its perpetual and endless revolu- 
tions and evolutions, gradually advancing towards the 
outer surface of this fiery orb, as it increases in com- 
plexity and density, until it approaches the extreme 
verge of the sun ; when, by the impetus or centrifugal 
force it has attained, from its more compact structure 
and consequent increase of specific gravity, it breaks 
loose from its parent and files oft' at a tangent into illi- 
mitable space. If a ball of lead and another of cotton, 
of the same size, be tied each to a string and whirled 
violently around until the strings break, the leaden ball 
will fiy off in almost a straight line, for a long distance, 
before it makes a curve towards the earth ; while the 
cotton ball will perform a graceful curve from the mo- 
ment it breaks loose, and soon falls to the ground. The 
experiment will illustrate the movements of a planet, 
when first thrown off from the sun (being much more 
dense) ; or, in other words, it will account for the 
eccenLTic movement of comets, which, in fact, are new- 
born and baby earths or planets. The extreme tenuity, 
fluidity, and rarefaction of its particles, and its conse- 
quent feeble cohesive attraction, and its irregular 
orbituary and axillary movements, give the new earth 
elongated, attenuated, and many curious forms, as pre- 
sented to the beholder on another planet. Sometimes 
it happens that the caudal extremity gets so " long- 
drawn out," and so far from the center of gravity — the 
proper polarity or axis not being yet fully estab- 
lished — that a part or parts become detached or broken 
off. The detached parts become "satellites," or moons, 
Tihich coiitiuue to revolve around and within the orbit 



106 TIIOUGnTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 

of the new earth. Our earth has one of these parasites ! 
Other planets several. 

In "the lapse of ages, the attractive and repulsive, or 
the centripetal and centrifugal forces, become equalized, 
the particles of matter have formed more intimate asso- 
ciations, the outer surfaces have locked up a large por- 
tion of the free caloric within the embrace of their own 
substance, and have consequently condensed and hard- 
ened — a globular form has succeeded the oblate sphere, 
with its spinal extremity, and a regular orbit is defined 
and maintained. Oxygen and nitrogen have united in 
the proper proportions to form the atmosphere ; oxygen 
and hydrogen have combined to form water ; oxygen 
and silicon have entered into an adamantine embrace to 
form quartz rock ; oxygen and carbon have formed a 
tripartite union with calcium, producing immense beds 
of carboniferous lime-stone. Numerous other combina- 
tions of oxygen with gases, metals, and other elements 
— and these again combining with other simple or com- 
pound substances — have brought out of this vast amor- 
phous mass of elementary materials — as they existed in 
an intensely heated and rarefied state, when first thrown 
off from the sun — new, and more solid, and more perma- 
nent forms. 

In all this beautiful, harmonious, and ever-progress- 
ive flow of productive affinities, oxygen plays a very 
conspicuous part, as a positive, energizing, vitalizing 
principle. It appears to have grasped, and to have held 
fast within its embrace, the very germs of vitality. Phos- 
phorus is another form of its tangible development, not 
yet understood by chemists or physiologists. No living- 
plant or animal can exist without it. It is always 



THE END OF THE WOKLD. 107 

found in the seeds and germinal principles, in the sub- 
stance of the bone and brain and nerves, and in yet 
other parts of vegetables and animals. 

In the course of time, when " the waters had sub- 
sided,'' the heat and light emanating continually from 
the sun — upon the waters of the seas, and in rain, and 
mist, and dew — acted upon the surfaces of the granite 
and other rocks, abrading, decomposing, and uniting 
with their elements to produce other new compounds of 
a more refined and perfect nature. Thus large beds 
of gelatinous matter were formed in shallow pools be- 
neath the water-level, and a slimy coating upon the 
surfaces of the rocks above the water. (See second part 
Great Harmonia, vol. 5.) Thus soil was first formed — a 
preparation, elaboration, and combination of material, 
susceptible of developing vegetable life, marine and 
terrestrial. The first vegetable forms springing from 
these slimy rocks, were simple and not defined in their 
structure, being lichens, or cryptogamous plants, about 
seventy per cent, of whose substance is gelatin. 

As one forcible evidence of the fact of vegetables 
first originating from the elements of the rock on which 
they germinate, and from the heat, light, atmosphere, 
and moisture, is, that each rock of different chemical 
composition, when exposed to these influences, will pro- 
duce a moss peculiar to itself, and the same rock, in 
any latitude where it can grow, will always produce a 
plant of the same species, and each plant in its turn, of 
the thousands of classes, orders, genera, species, and 
varieties now in existence, will invariably produce an 
animalcule, or insect, peculiar to itself. These are facts 



108 , THOUGHTS CONCEENmG EELIGION. 

that have been abundantly substantiated by the most 
scientific naturalists of the age. 

The first forms of vegetation were brought into 
being, and perfected in their kind — elaborating from 
their own substance a germ or nucleus of vitality with 
the impress of its own individuality, inclosed within a 
receptacle capable of preserving and sustaining it, till 
the favorable action of the elements (in heat, light, 
moisture, and the soil,) could bring forth from each 
germ or seed " an image and likeness" of its parent — 
the organized substance or body of the original plant, 
having performed the ultimate object of its existence, 
dies, and the elements of which it is composed mingle 
with the thin soil on the surface of the rocks, adding to 
its substance, increasing its complexity, and refining its 
particles ; so that, with the return of the vernal equi- 
nox, and the genial rays of the sun, not only the seeds 
of the old lichen unfold and expand into the same spe- 
cies, but a new and more complicated plant, with 
distinct and marked differences (perhaps a fern.) 
makes its appearance, and rears its graceful stem and 
spreads its glossy foliage above the lowly moss. . 

Thus the ever-present and ever-active principle of 
vitality and creative Energy, acting and reacting upon 
the materials of our globe, started the kingdoms of 
Nature, which have 'and will ever continue to pro- 
gress — from the simple to the more complicated vegeta- 
ble forms: animalcule, infusoria, radiata, molusca, 
vertebrata, and Man as the Ultimate. The lowest and 
imperfect first, and the more complex and perfect after, 
in regular progression, but in distinct degrees. Each 
new type being dependent upon all that preceded it for 



THE EXD OF THE WORLD. 109 

its existence, but yet distinct and different from its pre- 
d'ecessors. 

Thus it requires certain- conditions, proportions, 
and combinations of elementary inorganic substances 
to produce a vegetable — and vegetable growth is 
dependent entirely upon elementary regimen — while 
animals cannot be produced or sustained in their exist- 
ence by inorganic or elementary matter. The organic 
compounds of the blood, muscular fiber, gelatin, skin, 
hair, nails, or horns, &c., are all formed in exact con- 
stituents or proportions from the elementary particles 
that enter into their composition by the vegetable. The 
vegetable kingdom must, therefore, have existed before 
the animal — the vegetable realm being the stepping- 
stone, or connecting-link, between the elementary or 
mineral kingdom and the animal. Hence, if the 
vegetable kingdom should by any cause be blotted out 
from the face of the earth, the animal would soon be 
annihilated. 

All types in the endless chain of inorganic and 
organized substances, are but links in the one system 
of cause and effect, and each type or species is so marked 
and distinct as easily to be distinguished, and each 
variety and unity of the human species is so indelibly 
stamped with its own perfected individuality, as to be 
recognized from the myriads of the species. 

Thus, fixed, unvarying, and universal laws of the 
Father govern and regulate all his works. From the 
first fiat that was sent forth throughout all the ramifi- 
cations of the Universe, spiritual, physical, and celes- 
tial, eternal unity, order, and harmony reigns- — 
cjnception, development, progression, and perfection. 



110 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

mark all His work, and all point with the irresistible 
force of reason and demonstration to the immortality of 
the Soul. 

In taking this philosophical view of the* plan and 
proo;ress of Nature and the works of God, how grand, 
how sublime, how comprehensive, how rational and 
satisfactory — to the independent-thinking and inquiring 
mind, who wishes to " have a reason for the faith that is 
within him" — how perfectly are the love and wisdom 
and justice of the Father and Mother conjugated and 
displayed ! And how real, conclusive, and overwhelm- 
ing the evidence — appealing directly to the senses, the 
intellect, and the affections — of the self-conscious, 
immortal existence and progressive happiness of the 
«' spirit" that is within us ! The human species being 
the last and highest Type upon our earth, and the only 
one possessing reason and intelligence that examines 
and investigates all that is beneath and around itself, 
and that has a consciousness of the future — endeavoring 
to raise or draw aside the thin, semi-transparent vail 
that hangs suspended between the physical and the 
spiritual existence — analogy, "reasoning from what 
we know," points directly not only to the probability, 
but to the absolute certainty and necessity of a future 
existence — in short and finally, to the Summer-Land ! 

All organic forms below man not only produce their 
like, but the substances of their material forms mingle 
with previously-formed compounds, to produce a new 
and distinct type superior to itself. Bat the human type 
has no superior development, and there is no retrogres- 
sion in the works of Nature. Each new unfolding is 
superior to the preceding. Man, then, is destined for 



THE EXD OF THE WOELD. Ill 

other and higher Spheres. In those Spheres, or new 
states of existence, man's spirit must present not only 
an "image and likeness" of Nature and God, but a 
consciousness of identity and individual selfhood. 
Feeling and knowing this, he should so live while in 
this rudimentary and preparatory state of existence, 
that all physical, intellectual, moral, and spifitual 
structure, formation, growth, and maturity, be fully 
developed, cultivated, and perfected ; so that when the 
" mortal puts on immortality," and seeks " a home in 
the heavens," it can expand into a celestial being with- 
out spot or blemish to mar its beauty, or impede its 
progress in bliss and glory. 

Thus Geology teaches, among her first lessons, the 
rise, perfection, blossoming, decay, and disappearance 
of various classes of vegetation. She teaches that the 
simplest forms — gelatinous fibers oozing out from the 
lonely margins of early seas — crept over the rocks, 
gave out their efi&uence, laid the foundation for some- 
thing better, gathered the electricities of the air, 
absorbed carbon, became hard ; then the rains washed 
them down into deep declivities and spacious valleys, 
and carefully packed them away for the people to dig 
out in the form of " coal" many hundred centuries after- 
wards ! Those primeval mosses and early vegetations — 
the original plants and early trees, once the only glory 
of the physical world — are all gone into dense black- 
ness, fit only for the stove, the grate, and the igneous 
stomachs of Monitors, iron-clads, ocean steamers, and 
locomotives. Then the earth brought forth higher 
orders — grand, large, immensely high trees, which 
packed away in their capacious trunks centuries upon 



112 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

centuries of growth and chemistry. Regally, supremely, 
these trees flourished. But at length, gathering their 
forces m.ore closely within — deeper, with greater con- 
centration — took lire and burned themselves to death! 
Soon out of sight, they became a portion of the floral 
history of that epoch. 

Then, in the depths of the many warm seas, gelatin- 
ous compounds were slowly developed up into points of 
«' life." The early minute fishes flourished in myriads 
throughout the seas, and also through infusorial organi- 
zations, propagating incomprehensible harvests of finer 
organizations, and then decomposing, becoming in hun- 
dreds of centuries petroleum for the machinery of the 
world — filling all the little crevices of rocks and val- 
leys below the earth's surface, wherever they existed, 
and died in large abundance in the era of their greatest 
glory— now only oil, to-day being pumped up and 
burned in our most fashionable parlors. So tlie early 
'points of life died, and though they were honored with 
no tombstones to mark their graves, they have arisen 
from the rocks and live in the world's best uses. 

Let us go on through the animal kingdom, whei-e 
yet more distinctly the same lesson is taught. The first 
animals were huge in physical organization — ponderous 
and immense — slow in their motions ; they were 
filled with indolence — mere gastric receptacles or sto- 
machs for the digestion of dense forms of vegetable 
matter — built for the reception and impartation of parti- 
cles upon which they fed to form the basis of something 
better. Thus, primeval animals served for steps in a 
flight of stairs — for laws and materials to walk upward 
to the plane of finer organizations. You remember 



THE EXD OF THE ^VOELD. 113 

what Geology teaches with reference to the megathe- 
riums, the mammoths, and the ponderous saurians that 
once roamed over the earth — the vast elephantine ani- 
mals that were once so numerous and powerful thai 
nothing short of an earthquake could extinguish them — 
now all gone, save those vestiges and remains of 
nobility which continue in the modern elephant, the 
camel, and in the various squirming vipers in the fields 
of civilization and far off on mountain-sides, each 
declaring itself to be nothing more than the relic of 
vast viprous and animal populations long extinct. 

These great lessons come from Nature's and God's 
word. Say not, therefore, when you go from the read- 
ing of this Lecture, that you have been where infidelity 
was taught ; but when asked: "What have you been 
reading ?'' you can in truth reply : " I have been learn- 
ing lessons from the word of God." These ti'nths are 
words of Deitv, because thev are written on the ever- 
lasting rocks and upon the beautiful hills, which show 
their secret instructions to those who will read and 
have " a heart to understand" God's infallible ideas 
written in the wondrous volume of Nature. Always 
the wisest mind is the best reader — the fastest learner, 
and the happiest. 

It becomes now particularly important to observe 
that the higher grades of animals — those which exist 
on the earth to-day — are not the everlasting com- 
panions of the world. You know that it is even now 
difficult to keep certain animals in the world. Already 
science is concerning itself with the propagation of par- 
ticular fishes. These animals and fishes are growing 
fewer, not simply because mankind feed upon them with 



114 THOUGHTS CONCERNING KELIGION. 

such unbridled rapacity, but because, although they 
show the usual large preparations for future pro- 
geny, yet only a small percentage of their young are 
matured. Certain species of fish are, for this cause, 
almost utterly extinct. Certain birds, too, are growing 
" beautifully less" and less numerous, showing that 
their type is slowly becoming extinct. 

On this island of Manhattan, on which we exist to- 
day, the time was when wild beasts — more wild than 
the worst people in their passions — roamed through 
thickets and dank swamps ; the red man was lord of 
all; and fishes worked through the murky waters, and 
loathsome worms wriggled their happy lives away in 
the dirt and slime beneath. Behold, now it is a resur- 
rected Isle ! Like the new " Atlantis" prophesied in 
early Platonic history, bounded by the sea on all sides, 
opulent with science, and art, and happy homes, adorned 
by beautiful persons, filled with wisdom and affection, 
and bound together by united interests. These things 
for New York are prophesied on the basis of what now 
exists, because the departure of the wildness from the 
lower parts of Nature in the Island is a promise, in an 
internal sense, of the advent of that which is better, 
higher, grander, in whatsoever is human-^in society 
and in government. 

Many vipers that once lived and propagated in 
fearful abundance can now scarcely be found. Civili- 
zation marches onward and exterminates them. What 
is civilization ? Is it the especial intention of the pio- 
neer who goes to the far west, to destroy poisonous 
serpents or to kill wild animals ? No. Civilization 
does not come of intention ; it is the impulse of the 



THE END OF TPIE WORLD. 115 

great law of Progress which gives to man's instinct 
two expressions : one to kill for purposes of hunger, 
and the other to kill to gratify the desire to overcome 
— to give the pleasure of extermination. Nothing so 
much as man is endowed with this double motive to 
kill. The animals beneath man kill only to satisfy the 
demands of hunger. But man kills by the force of a 
higher propulsion — to destroy whatever is inimical to 
his highest material interests, dangerous to the children 
that play at the door, and baneful to the progeny that 
will come after them. A man is not made to stop and 
think, when he is first called upon to kill a bear or a 
lion, whether it would be likely to destroy a human 
being, or -not, if left with life. It is the inevitable 
voice of conquest that cries within him — the irresisti- 
ble, sturdy impulse, to convince his own faculties — to 
show by skillful marksmanship that he can destroy the 
enemy or animal before him. 1 say all this is testimony 
that the law of Progress — welling up through the hu- 
man faculties and blundering through the stupid head 
yet clear eye of the marksman — is exterminating all 
serpents and animals which are incompatible with the 
coming grand future of this planet. 

Time is a fine-comb, and Progress is the strong iron 
hand that grasps it — drawing it through all parts of 
the head of humanity ; and it will comb it clean ! All 
ferocious and venomous animals, all poisonous plants, 
all meddlesome bugs, all summer fliee, all wasps that 
sting — everything that comes out of filth and opposes 
refinement — everything that shocks civilization, that 
comes as an insult and slight to the mind's higher sen- 
timents — is destined, like these elder animals, and 



116 THOUGHTS CONCEKmNG RELIGION. 

fishes, and primordial trees, and early submarine vege- 
tations, to go down and die out of existence ! 

You cannot escape the conclusion that the human 
race is destined to pass through a similar experience. 
The theologic, or intuitive dream of the " End of the 
World," is based in a fact as well as upon a figure of 
speech : it is the upshot of a principle as well as a con- 
ception of its open manifestation. 

When the early vegetation died out, to them it was 
the end of the world. When the early saurians with- 
drew, when the vast birds died, when the old dragons 
and mammoth-bats which once roamed and flew through 
the world became extinct, to them it was the end of the 
world. When these various modern serpents, these 
ferocious animals, these poisonous plants, become 
extinct, to them it will be the end of the world. 

Kaces and nations rise up ; they flourish, grow opu- 
lent ; they reach the maximum of material happiness ; 
they slide down a rough declivity toward the sunset of 
history ; and where another and a new nation is born, 
there those once great nations are sepulchered. To the 
dying nations it is the end of the world. The early 
Aztecs thought that once the world was literally 
destroyed by a mighty Whirlwind. The Chaldeans, 
the Chinese, and others, have a myth that the world was 
once destroyed by a general Flood. (I believe there 
is a very similar myth recorded in the Old Testament.) 
The earliest Greeks taught that the globe was once 
destroyed by a Fire. Perhaps it will help the myth by 
saying that many Greeks were Alchemists and believed 
much in fire ! Famine was the means which hungry 
races supposed the gods used to destroy the world. A 



THE END OF THE ^VOELD. 117 

few tribes of Indians in North America believed in the 
destruction of the world by famine. There are, in fact, 
some twenty-live to thirty difterent doctrines in the 
world with regard to the means by which the physical 
world was once destroyed. Christians take one plan 
of destroying the world's population — that of wuter. 
By the amount of imperfection and corruption still 
remaining, one would be justified in saying that the 
water had been withdrawn several centuries too soon. 
It seems to have left the creed portion of the world 
muddier than it was before. World-makers and world- 
destroyers should not undertake to kill a population by 
water unless they can do the work universally and 
thoroughly. The world was not yet quite finished 
when that great Flood swept over the mountains and 
destroyed all ; and yet the drowning was not suffi- 
ciently thorough ; it did not destroy the evil conditions 
which caused the American rebellion ! There was left 
in human nature a whole nest of evil eggs, which, when 
incubated by the law of Progress, will bring out, in the 
future of this countrv, the enactment of another Re- 
bellion like this thing which is to-day startling and 
upturning all the nations of the world. And why ? 
Because no literal Flood, however universal, however 
high over the peaks of the Andes it might have been, 
or may be, could not and cannot quite kill out all human 
imperfections. " Perfection out of imperfection comes," 
as flowers bloom out of thedark, dreary, and unrespon- 
sive earth. That is the reason why the end of the 
world does not come in haste. It is the infinite method 
of doing finite things — the perpetual going over dreary 



118 THOUGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 

wastes and imperfect conditions — up to that which is 
blooming, beautiful, and perfect. 

Now the physical globe is to follow this progressive 
law. If a nation rises and matures, if it gathers around 
itself all the arts, and sciences, and splendors, and 
finally decays and dies ; so mankind may surely expect 
that the globe itself, after its mission is all accom- 
plished, will mature, decay, die, and disappear from 
space ! Astronomy, geology, chemistry, and all the 
sciences, show that this earth began ; they demonstrate 
with equal certainty that it will also grow old and be 
dissolved. Its chemical affinities, in a fQW hundred 
thousand years, will become antipathies. Its atoms will 
rush to the embrace of thousands of other bodies. 

The human race, properly so-called, is scarcely 
forty thousand years old. How old that is to a planet's 
population, you can judge by the aspect of the planet 
itself. What means it in this Temperate Zone, right 
between two great extremes, that we have these change-^ 
able seasons — these excessively curious exhibitions of 
climate and of temperature ? Because, I reply, the 
earth itself is yet new — is not yet out of its teens ! In 
its waters, in its mountains and valleys, in its chemis- 
try, the globe is yet all undeveloped. Its treasures are 
yet locked up in trunks of trees and fastened in recesses 
far down beneath the soil. The atmosphere, even in 
the temperate belt, is yet rampant with a thousand-fold 
eccentricities ; it is daily giving grotesque expressions 
of its innate, uncouth barbarisms ; is not yet civilized 
enough to keep out of your doors even when you have 
locked them ; not decent enough to cease "blowing you 
up" when you seek to comfortably and peaceably walk 



THE END OF THE WOELD. 119 

through the streets or open fields. Why, our uncivil- 
ized atmosphere is producing terrible havoc with 
navigation — is interfering every day with the com- 
merce of the world — like a barbarian not yet wise 
enough to follow the ways of wisdom. The globe is like 
a wild boy. He tumbles down stairs when he should 
be walking, and falls through the ice while skating, 
when he ought to be self-poised and too wise for acci- 
dents. The atmosphere i^ like a powerful wild horse 
not perfectly trained. Ever and anon it gathers up its 
black powers, stands before a chasm with accumulated 
vigor and tremendous energy, and bounds to the oppo- 
site side with all the madness of unemployed power. 
A wild horse sweeping over the prairies : that is the 
earth's atmosphere. This all explains ^hy the ele- 
ments play mankind such pranks, unroofing houses, 
tumbling over chimneys, and paying no more respect to 
a church-steeple than to the pole of a hay-stack ! 

When Benjamin Franklin sent up his card, he sim- 
ply obtained a slight indication that Mr. Lightning 
would, one of these days, be sociable and come to tea. 
He did get some of the fearful fluid bottled up ; just 
enough to talk with it — nothing more. Now Mr. Light- 
ning is social and chatty. He tells all the truth, and 
nearly all the lies, .about the present war. " Electri- 
city,^' alias " Lightning," cuts awful pranks with people 
in cholera times, and causes all kinds of unutterable 
mischief, according to recent discoveries, in the dis- 
eases of animals throughout the country. All because 
the fluid is not tame — it is wild, barbarous ; it has not 
come into the best society ; and it does not know how 
to behave among folks. 



120 THOUGHTS CONCEKinXG RELIGION. 

All this is equally true of the globe. The earth is 
eccentric ; it is sidewise in its orbit ; it does not yet 
know enough to get down and lie straight in its bed. 
Now it rolls in its path almost wrong end foremost. 
When the poles of the planet shall come into harmony 
with the plane of its. orbit, then how beautifully the 
sun will cause all parts of it to bloom ! The globe is 
not yet sufficiently good to be so blessed. It will not 
be so blessed while this orbital inequality continues to 
exist. 

Mankind must not soon expect our oceans to be 
calm, nor our lightnings to save the churches, nor hur- 
ricanes to respect haystacks, or people, or cattle, nor 
that the atmosphere will soon be civilized enough to 
favor men in their Arctic explorations or coast-line 
navigations. 

Men sneer at the fanatic who thinks he can ride in 
the air. Are you quite sure that the man is a fool who 
thinks that one of these days we will rise up in the air 
and be as safe, more certain, and far quicker, in our 
voyage, than when shipping for Europe on the best 
steamer ? Men laugh at those who dare suggest its 
scientific practicability. Most people belong to the 
race who have the power and the pomposity to laugh 
at fanatics, until their children adopt the inventions of 
those fanatics, and until mankind enjoy all the luxu- 
ries which such improvements diffuse throughout the 
world. Now, I say, mankind are not yet old enough 
on this planet, nor is the atmosphere old enough, nor 
is electricity tame enough, and the mental world itself 
is not large and good enough, to realize aerial naviga- 
tion. Therefore it will not come right away But just 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 121 

as sure as I am now speaking — as certain as birds fly — 
so certain will safe, swift, and delightful air navigation 
be man's achievement. 

The earth is yet very young. It is now only a few 
millions of years old — in its early teens — has not been 
in existence long enough to prepare the human race for 
a higher degree of civilization. Only a few years ago, 
across the Atlantic, in France, a man, although starving 
to death, gave to the world systematic intimations and 
lofty demonstrations to the effect that a higher social 
order would inevitably come. Of course it is popular 
to slander him, and to blacken his character out of 
sight ; but the 

*' Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again." 

Not all that Fourier or Swedenborg said is true ; not 
all that I say is true. True men make their words as 
near truth as possible. Mankind must be catholic and 
all-embracing ; instead of excluding all the conflicting 
creeds, better take them all in and pulverize them. 

When you go upon the mountain hights, and with 
your vision sweep the plain, and the whole horizon of 
thought, can you not take the pictures home with you, 
and tell your wife and children what you have seen and 
enjoyed on the summit ? Perhaps your wife and little 
ones live in the valley of thought ; they may look out 
only through the open door, or through some panes of 
broken glass, and see only a few pigs or the dirty fowls 
that are squawking for something to eat, and crying 
children that need bread to keep them still : this, per- 
haps, is what the valley-minded woman sees in her 
lowly estate. Or, perhaps the wife is the progressive 



122 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

ffiember of the house. If the better-minded woman 
goes, I pray that she will try to attract upwards with 
her that ponderous being called " a husband." Go on 
together, if it be possible ; sweep the horizon of Pro- 
gression, take in the thoughtful scene ; then, on return- 
ing, tell your listening neighbors, who have not yet 
gone up, of the rivers and mountains, plains, farm- 
houses, and beautiful trees — all the picturesque 
vision of higher forms of truth. / 

The mental world, I repeat, is young. The physi- 
cal globe, too, is so young that it cannot be speedily 
called to order. The tempests of the physical world 
are only what we see mentally breaking out in the gal- 
leries of political conventions. Hurricanes are but 
parts of what occurs in the State Legislatures. Where 
political heathenism exists, there will be tornadoes and 
hurricanes ! It is natural for people to be dirty until 
they are washed. People will be covered with politi- 
cal, social, and religious vermin, until they are per- 
fectly cleansed and civilized, purely clothed, and 
thoroughly combed. All this is applicable to the phy- 
sical world. 

What of the races ? The nations and peoples are 
not prepared for a higher order of society. They have 
not lived up to their present knowledge, and of course 
they are not ready for a grander social or political 
development. Best minds are ready only to say and 
believe that something better is possible, and that 
is all. But " humanity sweeps onward." 

The great world is grand and sublime, because it 
rolls progressively away toward the coming centu- 
ries! The human race, about forty thousand years old, 



THE END OF THE WOULD. 123 

has but reached its thirteenth year in true civilization. 
In its politics, in its republicanism, in its democracy, in 
its poetry, in its music, and in its spirituality, the race 
is yet very young. Much will happen when 100,000 
more of these rolling years shall have passed away ! 
The notes of music which come through spiritual com- 
munications — from the lofty summits of heavenly inspi- 
ration — enable us to catch but imperfect glimpses of 
the " good time" when the earth shall ripen and blos- 
som as the rose. All this shows what the world is fast 
coming to see. 

When mankind shall have grown spiritually larger 
and finer in body, they will have fewer and fewer 
children. Down in the lower strata of society behold 
how populous ! Take the early races : they propa- 
gated rapidly. Earth's mothers have been broken down 
by their exceedingly numerous progeny. Rise higher 
in the scale, and the married have fewer children and 
less frequently. Rise still higher and higher in the 
mental scale, and you can easily believe the time will 
come when reproduction will cease. There will then 
be fathers and mothers with their descendants ; and 
the progeny will become as the angels — " neither mar- 
rying nor given in marriage" — having arisen above the 
mission of propagation — all ready for the wondrous 
apotheosis which will close the scene of the human 
race. 

In the vast future (I wish I had another hour this 
morning, in which to speak of what will happen between 
this and the future,) when the race itself has grown to 
the highest point of maturity. Behold at last a family 
group ascends from the " perfect sleep" into the Upper 



124: THOUGHTS CONCEKNING EELIGION. 

life ! They close the terrestrial drama, and the cur- 
tain falls. The great bell of chemistry is now struck, 
and instead of a conflagration, as the "Adventists" 
believe, slow decomposition — dying like a puff — decay- 
ing and dropping asunder like the stump of a tree with- 
out vitality — then spreading its atoms over millions of 
solar bodies that are ready to grasp these chemical 
opportunities — thus this planet will cease, and its popu- 
lation, all in the Summer-Land, looking down upon the 
closing of this sublime tragical drama ! 

The cerebellum, I again remark, will one of these 
days cease to have any function with reference to repro- 
duction. The finest, most poetic and spiritual mind, 
gathers nearly all of its propagating powers and essen- 
ces into the front-brain and top-faculties. Such persons 
have few children. Men who are yet full of the world's 
blood, and women who are full of similar vitalities, 
still believe that many children, better propagated, 
would be great blessings to the w'orld. Only friends 

of Progress dare to speak the whole truth on this sub- 

* 

ject. Not a church-minister in the city, with the vast 
organization of moneyed men to support the pulpit, 
dares to speak the truth which lies at the basis of 
the happiness of mankind. 

But friends of Progress are free to speak. We 
sing new songs. We have new wings of great princi- 
ples just starting. We are ready to soar wherever the 
truth shall attract. We have free feet ready to scale 
the highest mountains. We are a glad and cheerful 
people, with unbounded hope. To our eyes the 
heavens are open, and our souls are filled with the 
attractive inspiration of the future. All this brings 



THE END OF THE WOELD. 125 

US joy and peace in the midst of carnage and confusion 
in the physical world. The true harmonial pro- 
gressive Women and Men stand unruffled and 
unchanged. They know that, in the far-off future 
time, the better will dominate what is merely good ; 
that the best will dominate the better ; that fruits and 
flowers will yet blossom in the wilderness ; and that, 
from out of the earth's dark places, the white lilies of 
peace shall bloom with an immortal beauty. 



THE NE¥ BIRTH 



OB, 



THE SPIRIT'S PROGRESS IN TRUTH. 



" To commune with God amidst the beauty of earth, in thanksgiving, 
For life, health, our daily bread, and, by second birfch, 
A home in heaven." 

The first view of this question that comes before the 
ignorant mind is the supernatural. It is incorporated 
with all religious education, and has been strengthened 
by the psychological influence of all ecclesiastical teach- 
ers. Hence there exists in almost every mind an unde- 
finable conviction that the new birth — " a change of 
heart" — is a supernatural effect, produced by instru- 
mentalities differing wholly from those laws of growth 
which bring mankind into existence, which cause the 
flowers to burst into blossom and the sun to shine : that 
in order to understand what is meant by a new heart, 
or to have the mysterious experience of such a 
" change," we must come into a state different from the 
whole system of laws, causes, and effects, which charac- 
terize and regulate the unchangeable universe. 

Dr. Bushnell, a most classical expounder of the 
popular theory of the supernatural, holds the conviction 
that, above the will and reason of every person, there 
is a super-plane, an extra Divine sphere, differing from 
all the fixed natural laws and mathematical principles 



THE NEW BIRTH. 127 

which move and systematically distribute the pondera- 
ble bodies of space. The supernatural, he would say, 
is the great voluntary system of God ; the involuntary 
portion is the system of Nature, which is an organiza- 
tion endowed with laws, and with characteristics and 
attributes and forces, without inter-consciousness to 
operate throughout the interminable periods of the 
future, as it has through all past eternities, in unvary- 
ing accordance with the fixed plans of the Infinite 
Mind. If anything should occur in the departments of 
human nature contrary to the established laws and 
legitimate effects, it is a " miracle." It is furthermore 
held that God reserves to himself a realm of voluntary 
powers, with which, whenever in the depth of wisdom 
and love it seems best, he volitionally interposes, sus- 
pends, repeals, reverses, subverts any of the fixed laws 
of Nature — breaking them utterly — otherwise miracles 
would never occur, and the supernatural world would 
not be revealed and vindicated. Dr. Bushnell has 
probably given as complete an exposition of that side of 
the subject as can be found in the language, although 
necessarily very unsatisfactory and irrational, because 
the subject itself is involved in mazes of the greatest 
obscurity and superstition. 

No miracle is possible without conflict with the 
established atomic laws of the physical universe. 
Whatever occurs in harmony with the requirements of 
any of these laws, is no miracle ; though the occurrence 
might be a higher manifestation of the same general 
plan, not before fully understood. The definition of a 
miracle would be the development of something in con- 



128 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

tradiction, in antagonism, with the immutable atomic 
affinities of the physical universe. 

The" controversy between Progressive minds and the 
Church-people turns exactly on this one point, viz., 
whether Deity ever contradicts the established laws of 
the physical and spiritual universe ? Did he, or does 
he ever suspend the operation of natural principles, in 
order to accomplish anything for the especial benefit 
of any class of people, or for the sake of any particular 
person ? 

Desiring to ascertain the exact truth of the ques- 
tion, we have gone into investigations of what, in the 
past, have been accredited as "miracles," and which 
have ecclesiastically been and are yet considered mar- 
vels absolutely necessary to substantiate the peculiar 
claims and Messiahship of Jesus. The theory is, that 
he depended very much on these " signs and wonders" 
to arrest the attention of the people, and thus lead 
them, through their marvelousness, to a perception of 
higher truths. The different Churches say that the 
test of his Messiahship — the evidence that he was sent 
as the only begotten of God to humanity — is the super- 
natural power displayed in his miracles ! 

Now, we have investigated and analyzed this chap- 
ter of Bible-miracles, which these churchmen dare not 
do. They sometimes confess that they dare not take a 
miracle and probe it to its primal elements. Some 
clergymen cannot always afford to follow the plain 
truth ; others are constitutionally cowardly ; and others 
are intellectually inpompetent ; whilst many of tlie 
evangelical school eat too much, and are indolent. But 
Progressives have freely examined the question ol 



1 



THE NEW BIETn. 129 

Bible-miracles, with a sincere desire to know " what is 
truth/' and they find that there is nowhere recorded, 
either in the Old Testament or in the New, a transac- 
tion which, in any possible degree, violates the estab- 
lished order and fixed laws of Nature. If any one 
among you know of miracles, or fancy that you know 
of positive events, in direct contradiction to the 
unchangeable principles of human nature or of the 
physical universe, you should at once give a full exposi- 
tion of what you think you know on the subject. 

" A change of heart" — in the fact of which we 
firmly believe — is no supernatural manifestation of 
God's grace. We very earnestly believe in a " new 
birth ;"' yea, in a succession of new birtlis. We believe 
that there are many individuals who need to be born 
again and patched up a good many times to be anybody 
worth mentioning. This is true because there are so 
many persons who seem to have been badly born from 
the first — "conceived in sin and brought forth in ini- 
quity." 

But there are other natures born in righteousness. 
We thank heaven for these beautiful bows of human 
promise, even though they come without especial 
intention or merit on the part of their progenitors. 
Halos of immortal effulgence now and then flash forth 
through the beautiful birth of approximate Saviors. In 
music, in art, in science, in philosophy, in every 
direction towards which human interests tend, or from 
which human needs are supplied, we behold well-born 
and highly-endowed sons and daughters of wisdom and 
liberty. A highly endowed person may be surprisingly 
" well-born" in one particular respect, and yet may 



130 THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 

remain unconceived in almost every other department 
of mind and soul. 

No, we do not accept the doctrine of a supernatural 
spiritual conception, nor a new, miraculous birth. We 
hold that man's mind is so constituted as to desire 
sensuous Knowledge and also beautiful Wisdom, or 
wise Knowledge, which is spiritual Understanding. It 
is natural for man to desire to expel ignorance from his 
mind. The soul throws a power from the center of its 
being, saying to ignorance: "Get thee behind me!" 
and then, turning to heaven, it says : " Give me under- 
standing, I entreat Thee ; and give me also wisdom ; 
and oh, give me power, and true knowledge also, by 
which that power can be made executive and practi- 
cal.'^ The desire to know, is the first implanted ambi- 
tion of the intellectual faculties. Useful knowledge is 
the next demand ; then knowledge that is consistent, as 
well as useful ; then beautiful knowledge, as well as 
consistent ; then spiritual knowledge, as well as beauti- 
ful ; then knowledge celestial, as well as spiritual — 
these are the gradually awakening prayers and unde- 
finable longings of the perpetually-borning human 
spirit. 

There are persons who pass on for years, feeling 
only a feeble desire to know more — to have less igno- 
rance in common, every-day concerns. It is not 
important to them whether they know " the whole 
truth," so long as they have the common-place ex- 
changes of a talkative society. To this end they take 
the established Quarterlies, read the political pamphlets 
and the fashionable periodicals, and peruse such por- 
tions of the daily papers as inform them concerning the 



THE NEW BIRTH. 131 

common doings of the world. Such information seems 
to be a complete gratification to many minds. On 
Sundays they attend some established church, and 
during the brief moments spent there they hear music, 
and come under the influence of devotional prayers, or 
listen, it may be, to an eloquent, a beautiful, and per- 
haps a spiritual sermon, and, for the time being, such 
minds feel vague longings for something more " inte- 
rior'' which they do not consciously possess. But they 
hasten home to dinner. That settles all the fine emo- 
tions that were excited. Down they drop into their 
newspapers, and presently into a solid, snoring nap, and 
on waking, find themselves the persons they were after 
business hours on Saturday night. Others become 
excited. They feel enthusiastically warm all through- 
out their beating hearts. They feel that the physical 
dinner cannot come between them and the blessed truths 
of heaven. They go devotionally to their rooms to seek 
the Lord in prayer. Then they come under the influ- 
ence of a new psychology ; a finer feeling has com- 
menced to flow from the mysterious fountains of spirit. 
They wish to know the will of their heavenly Father — 
beautiful, loving, saving justice, power, purity, and 
truth, which are God. Holy emotions rise from the 
depths of the spirit and set the moral faculties in action, 
and the whole religious group of organs bow them- 
selves reverently before that newly-awakened desire to 
be at peace with God. With deep sincerity such minds 
■go to their closets, shut the door, and prostrate them- 
selves in prayer, or pray themselves into prostration. 
They attend the revival-meeting both day and night, 
until, like one of our celebrated pugilists, the over- 



132 THOUOUTS CONCEKNING EELIGION. 

joyed heart rises and boldly declares itself " saved by 
God," through the supernatural interposition of the 
sanguineous sweat of the Vicarious Redeemer. And 
the upshot of this excitement is called " a change of 
heart!'' 

Some are only spectators. Some have been through 
the mill. Others have been converted and '' born 
again" a good many times. There are persons in all 
communities who have had the mysterious bewilderment 
of this experience, and have come safely and reasonably 
out of it ; and they testify that, while in it, they were 
happier, but did not know as much; were not large in 
thought nor liberal ; but they felt warmer, felt kind- 
lier, felt a closer connection with something incompre- 
hensible and mysteriously sublime. Young hearts, 
between the ninth and twentieth year, are especially 
susceptible to such Methodistical conversions ; just as 
between the cradle and the twelfth year the physical 
system is susceptible to measles, mumps, whooping- 
cough, and kindred infirmities. I say there is an 
impressible period in each human life when a theologi- 
cal change of heart — a church-rousing among the 
young men and maidens — comes about and produces its 
devotional and probational effects as naturally as the 
little distempers of childhood afflict the tender physical 
organs. 

A man just begins to be somebody when he is 
plumply forty-five years of age. Before that time he 
has an uncertain history and an unsolidified character.' 
A woman truly begins to he when she is forty. There 
is then womanly beauty and practical strength. The 
orb of life is truly balanced at this age in its path 



THE NEW BmTH. 133 

around the sun of Duty. Hopes have been disappointed 
and buried, and they have been also resurrected and 
educated. Ambition and vanity have been checked 
and chided many times; and baseless expectations of 
worldly victories have been driven and punished out 
of the temple. The person begins to comprehend the 
solid facts of life, and to feel largely and sympatheti- 
cally acquainted with the current wants, impulses, and 
experiences of human nature in general. After the 
fortieth year there occur few sudden conversions. 

Almost every religious person in Christendom can 
remember to have experienced something like " a change 
of heart." Now and then, however, some one has 
dropped over-board in the voyage, or stranded upon 
some cliff by the way, and therefore she or he has never 
sensibly drifted into the ecclesiastical current. Some 
have stood upon the shore of religion and contemplated 
the mysterious voyage in which others were embarking. 
They stand to-day and remark : " I never was taken 
into any Church ; I never was converted ; I have tried, 
to be, but never could be." This is tlie experience of 
a few religious souls in Christendom. Large numbers, 
on the other hand, testify that they have passed iiito the 
mysterious experience of feeling a oneness with Doily, 
and a certain conscientious reconciliation with the 
Bpirit of the historic Redeemer. 

If you were intimately acquainted with the religious 
experience of the Mahommedans, Chinese, Chaldeans? 
or Persians, who have nothing essentially at war with 
the spirit of Christianity, you would recognize your 
own human nature with the same mysterious, sub^ 
^icctively spiritual experience, under the identical la\\ 



134 TGoiJGiiTs conci:ening religion. 

of psychological contact with Deity. They also obtain 
and experience the " new birth," or " change of heart.'' 
Many religious souls have had this experience who 
never heard the name of Jesus — that " name" which 
many Christians consider essential to the ultimate 
safety of souls. 

That celebrated religious phenomenon, which Unita- 
rian missionaries obtained in the Eastern world — I mean 
Mr. Philip Chunder Jogut Gangooly, who probably 
cost about five thousand dollars to get him squarely 
converted, educated, and shipped to this country — 
testified that Christians, not excepting Unitarians, were 
in need of true knowledge relative to the leading doc- 
trines and ceremonies of Hindooism. He found the 
American people religiously ignorant — found that we 
knew but little, and what we did know was, like super- 
ficial drinking at the Pierian spring, calculated to 
make all a little drunk with religious feeling and con- 
ceit. His influence, however, had the effect of rendering 
our missionaries more eloquent and our bumps of 
benevolence more susceptible. Mr. . Gangooly said 
nothing remarkable about a "change of heart.'' 

Bishop Colenso is a convert to God's preaching 
through the unsophisticated, but highly religious nature, 
of tliose far distant heathen children. They put ques- 
tions to him which he would not answer dogmatically. 
Tlie noble bishop would " once more think of it." Once 
more the teachable teacher felt that he must study his 
own theories — go back again to the cardinal proposi- 
tions of his Church — down to the primal principles of 
his own long-cherished doctrines. And this accom- 
plished and noble-souled gentleman was sent by aa 



THE NEW BIETn. lo5 

cs'S.cgsijod institution to teach its religious dogmas to 
the heathen, by which they were to be led to God ! But 
the entreaties of the heathen children led him prayer- 
fully to a re-examination, to a new analysis and mea- 
surement of his creedal propositions, and lo ! the result 
is " conversion" — a new birth in the heart of the good 
Bishop Colenso. And then Bishop Rochester attempts 
to send the news to the kingdom of heaven, through his 
formal prayers, and advises all the prelates and priests 
of that region to send like word, that poor Bishop 
Colenso has strayed from the fold of truth.^ " Pray 
for him ! He is laboring under a soul-destroying 
heresy !" What evangelical ignoramuses ! what con- 
summate twaddlers ! what accomplished imbeciles ! 
Why, the priests and prelates are asked to pray against 
the very truths which those simple children of the Most 
High put to the susceptible and honest spirited Colenso ! 
The heathen converted the Bishop to a higher know- 
ledge of God. Let all men and women see in the 
teachable spirit of that excellent minister a beautiful 
example, and let them not be behind him in simplicity 
and integrity. " Are you quite sure" — they asked 
him — " are you quite sure. Bishop, that all who never 
heard the name of Jesus will eternally suffer ?" He 
could not reply, for he was not quite sure / Sent by a 
great ecclesiastical power to teach the heathen, yet he 



* The Bishop of Oxford has recently addressed a pastoral letter to 
his clergy, in which he laments that Dr. Colenso has resolved to per- 
severe in the course on which he has entered, and adds, that while it 
is a matter of deep thankfulness that no leaven of this unbelief is to be 
found in the Oxford Episcopate, it is not best to be contented with 
mere immunity from error. '"Rather," says the Bishop, " let the sight 
of a brother so misled humble and warn us." 



136 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

was "not quite sure"! Let us thank God — God does 
not want us to thank him — well, let us be grateful to 
the Heart of all principles, for the teachable, the 
beautiful, and child-like spirit of Bishop Colenso, which 
caused him, with power, to say : " Dogmatism, depart ! 
These heathen children ask me if I am quite sure of 
eternal suffering for all who have not accepted Jesus. 
No ! / am not sure /" Then he goes to his New Testa- 
ment ; goes in deepest prayer ; he prayed as good as 
the best of you can pray, and with as sincere a heart ; 
and he finds therein what he never found before, viz., 
that the Divine never designs to cast oif anything per- 
taining to the constitution of the human soul! He finds. 
on the other hand, that the truths and real revelations^ 
of the New Testament are worthy of the paternal Soul 
of the universe. He says, therefore, to all the world . 
"I am a new man." And we respond. Amen ! He has 
experienced a " new birth." And yet the dogmatic 
Church, which holds that the new birth is essential for 
a sight at the kingdom of heaven, is bowed down in 
lamentations over his conversion ! Presently another 
class of religionists will undertake to wheel the Bishop 
into line with their peculiar forms and notions. 

If I were able, I would speak with an emphasis of 
ten tons to the square inch, so that the whole world 
should hear that the system of Christianity — I say 
" the system," not the spirit, remember — as it is to-day 
preached and presented to mankind, is, generally 
speaking, just as monstrous a piece of quackery as any 
practice we find in the discordant world of medicine. 
Christendom is filled with ecclesiastical quacks and 
charlatans on this very subject of "the new birth." 



THE NEW BIETH. 137 

You cannot in American cities walk over five hundred 
yards without noticing a new sign up, announcing a new 
method of introducing you into the kingdom of heaven. 
The Methodist differing from the Episcopalian, the 
Presbyterian from the Baptist, the Quaker from the 
Universalist, the Congregationalist from the Uni- 
tarian ! 

Every one who reads the Bible — as I am glad every 
educated person can in the independence of conscious- 
ness and reason — sees in it precisely, what his or her 
state of mind makes apparent, and that is all. A man 
will see its teachings literally or figuratively, symboli- 
cally or spiritually, Swedenborgianally or quite other- 
wise, in accordance with the elections of his state of 
mind. And he will furnish the " class-meeting" with 
descriptions of Iiis religious and spiritual development, 
or new birth, in accordance with his intellectual cali- 
ber, education, and worldly experience. If his priest 
has impressed him to be a dogmatist, he will hold up 
the stupid sign and say : " Lo ! this is the only way to the 
new birth, and the shortest route to the kingdom of 
heaven." 

Friends of Progress should help men over all this. 
Let them understand that, by means of true spiritual 
growth, they can become united, and thus destroy the 
monstrous mistakes and expensive theological quacke- 
ries which infest Christendom. No wonder so many 
honest souls get so hndly-horn in the conflicting 
Churches ! No wonder so many come out sanctimoni- 
ous and h3'pocritical, but not sanctified ! True, many 
tender-hearted converts in the Churches are inclined to 
be spiritual, and some of them are permanently im- 



138 THOUGHTS COIfCEENING KELIGION. 

proved and benefited for life by the mysterious shock, 
coupled with the institutional or societary check ; but 
a far greater number, on the other hand, are rendered 
permanently small and limited in their understandings 
of the human world, of the great truths of Christianity ; 
and the life-long moral consequences are — bigotry on 
most questions, narrow-mindedness, social bitterness, 
and a squeamish or malignant protest against the 
onward work of Reformers. 

Now, all interior and common-sense men have prac- 
tical and similar understandings of the origin, nature, 
and validity of the " new birth." Many of them, how- 
ever, becoming utterly disgusted with supernatural 
theories, have gone to reading books of Medicine, or to 
reading Law, and have resolutely given, up all specula- 
tive thoughts and the cultivation of all sentimental 
inclinations toward the popular Church, and toward 
spiritual things in general. Some of them still hold to 
progression and improvements in moral reforms, and 
such teach that the truest new birth consists in a true 
generation and a true exodus of both body and soul. 
*' The true practical birth," say they — the only one 
which will save the trouble of all the pseudo-regenera- 
tive processes which the Churches have inaugurated, 
and do away with all the mysterious strugglings to get 
born again — "is to be perfectly born from the begin- 
ning." These results rest directly with the mother and 
the father — the true Joseph and the true Mary — who 
are to bring the gentle human Saviors into the world. 
The Christs are to be born from the spirit, without 
miracle, through the organs of human reproduction. 
There is to be a- multiplication of Saviors, " both male 



TIIE NEW BIETH. 139 

and female." Instead of one being born every ten cen- 
turies or two thousand years, there will eventually be 
one born every ten years, and ultimately, every time a 
child is born the angels will sing " glad tidings of 
great joy," for each child will be a Christ-spirit and a 
Savior. Let us, therefore, exalt woman's mission and 
situation, and esteem man as the all-embracing, exter- 
nal, protective, and positive sphere in which woman 
secretly performs her allotted duties. She is to be the 
Savior in the sense of being a fountain from which a 
stream, a river, a lake, a sea, an ocean of purer bodies 
and souls will flow for the progress and purification of 
the world. 

is not this a practical doctrine of being born again ? 
You know that few people are well-born. Their 
spiritual genesis is defective ; their deformities are 
numerous — not only physiological defects, but also 
mental and moral. Henry Ward Beecher is physically 
hearty and morally stout enough — I am so glad that he 
has made himself also 'popular and sufficiently accepta- 
ble — to convert a Congregationalist pulpit into a public 
Sunday rostrum ! The accomplishment of that " new- 
birth" in the functions of a pulpit is a decided indica- 
tion of his great inherent power, and of his great 
mastery over the feelings and thoughts of his hearers. 
And in the freedom of his Congregational platform, ho 
says, that a man horn right the first time is very superior 
to the man who has been " converted" under the influ- 
ence of religion. ('See Progressive* Annual for 1862. | 
The converted man — notwithstanding the restraints of 
the Church and of Paul's gospel, and the additional 
checks to bad morals constantly dropping from the 



140 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

eaves of the sanctuary — is not so good a man as a man 
who was born good and rightly 'trained from birth. 
That is to say, a naturally good man is superior to a 
converted bad man in the Church. I am so glad Henry 
said it ! I wish all gospel-ministers were sufficiently 
stout in stomach and fearless in brain to make pro- 
gressive platforms out of their pulpits, and then preach 
the wisdom thereof to their astounded congregations ! 
Pity they are not more morally vigorous. They have 
not the power of God with them. That is the cause of 
their feebleness and bigotry. It would take twenty 
Trinities to give Protestant clergymen moral courage 
adequate to preach, investigate, and enforce new prin- 
ciples of human regeneration. But my Brother Beecher, 
on the Sunday Rostrum, notwithstanding his substra- 
tum of skepticism as to the existence of the Trinity 
itself, is yet enabled to announce a most thrilling prin- 
ciple of redemptive Truth. He is not afraid to tell the 
people that they had better propagate their children 
right from the start — not in " sin and in iniquity," but 
with the pure, beautiful, celestial principles of health 
and harmony in the body, and with the balance of 
righteousness in the spiritual organization. From 
thence goodness in the subsequent individual flows as 
from a fountain, while "conversions" do nothing more 
than modify and patch up that which, after all, at heart, 
is out of moral shape and due working proportion, and 
the crookedness of which cannot be straightened for a 
lengthened period in the Summer-Land. I wish my 
Brother Henry had also said that the morally mis- 
shapened and intellectually crooked do not quite 
recover until the Summer-Land pours its fine discipline 



THE NEW EIKTIT. 141 

and its healiii<]: masrnetism throuijrh and over the affeo 

CD O ~ 

tions and character. But he has not got so far. 

In the New Testament, in the third chapter of John, 
we find a most practical view of this question of a new 
birth, and yet it was given to mankind, as it were, acci- 
dentally, or as part of a common conversation. It 
makes one feel as though Nicodemus ought to receive 
the thanks of Christendom for the spiritual answers 
which his materialistic interrogatories elicited. Nico- 
demus was a distinguished Pharisee. The Pharisees, 
you know, were almost all dogmatic men, just like these 
American religionists and doctors of divinity. They 
held high positions, and filled all the important offices 
in Israel. Nicodemus was a Ruler. He had heard 
that the "young man" was teaching strange, mysterious 
doctrines through the country; and, being a Ruler, 
like the Governor of one of our States, he went to the 
" young man," and very politely asked him to " explain 
himself." The Israelitish gentleman did not wish to be 
conspicuous in such a matter. Therefore, somewhat as 
Mr. Lincoln left Baltimore for Washington, so the 
Ruler put on an unusual coat, and a different hat, and 
away he stealthily went to have a religious talk with 
the son of Mary and Joseph. Said he to the spiritual 
man : " What is this doctrine of being born again ? 
What do you mean by it ?" So spake Mr. Nicodemus. 
The "young man" held up the doctrine, plainly, sub- 
stantially, that, " unless a man be born again, he can- 
not see the kingdom of heaven." Nicodemus first paid 
him a compliment ; for, said he, You are a very influ- 
ential, successful person ; you must be *' of God." You 
do these wonderful things — you accomplish these so- 



142 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

called miracles among the people — consequently, you 
must be a Son o^ God, and I am willing to call you 
" Rabbi," or master. (Now-a-days we say " Mr.," 
instead of " Rabbi.'') 

The Ruler was investigating " for himself." Said 
he : " What is the meaning of all this V Jesus gave 
him an obscure answer ; " Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." Now, merely 
seeing the kingdom of heaven is not always satisfactory 
to one's spiritual cravings. You might see a very fine 
dinner in the next room, with a strong window between 
you and it, and you hungry and without money. Would 
seeing the dinner be calculated to satisfy the cravings 
of your appetite ? • Mr. Nicodemus did not seem to 
get much satisfaction out of the answer to his question. 
The theme itself was so extraordinary. »« How can that 
be V he thought. He took things literally. Said he : 
" How can an old man enter back through physical 
organs and be born again ?" 

Nicodemus naturally enough supposed he had the 
" best of the argument." His common experience and 
materialistic views, assured him. Says he : " That is 
absurd ; I can bring medical books to show that the 
thing has never occurred." Jesus, on the contrary, did 
not need any medical books to convince him. He knew, 
by the light of Intuition, that the new birth in the 
Ruler's mind was impossible. Miracles never occur. 
Jesus did not pretend that there was anything miracu- 
lous in his gospel of the new birth. He did not say 
that a man could possibly return and be born a second 
time through the physiological organs. He knew that 
such an event could not happen, any more than an 



THE NEW BIKTII. 143 

elderly man could swim back to the baby year and 
begin life again — any more than any event which has 
happened can be annihilated, from the history of the 
past. 

Jesus did not admit that Nicodemus's thought was 
possible. But instead he said: "Unless a man be born 
of water and of the spirit^ he cannot enter the king- 
dom." That is something more comprehensible. A 
man cannot come to dinner unless he pays the price. 
He cannot come to this feast of fat things — cannot 
drink the wine on the lea well-refined — unless he walks 
through water and in the Spirit. 

Now of all this I believe that I never had any 
doubt. I believe it, and have long believed it, because 
it is utterly without miracle, and, because the conception 
is so beautiful in itself. No spiritual person ever ques- 
tions that beautiful reformatory principle divulged in 
the third chapter of John. 

But Nicodemus was evidently astonished. He might 
have said : " I cannot make anything out of what you 
say ; it is all incomprehensible stuff to me. I cannot 
comprehend your ideas about water and the Spirit.^' 
Then what did Mary's spiritual son do ? Why, he cited 
a very interesting illustration of it — thatJs, interesting 
to commentators who make it their business to expound 
Scriptures, but very obscure to those who ask the ques- 
tion. Said he: "You do not understand the wind's 
mysteries, neither do you understand this. You cannot 
understand whence the wind cometh, nor whither it 
goeth. So of every person born of the Spirit." That 
limpid explanation must have been very unsatisfactory 
to Nicodemus. He very naturally said : " Well, I shall 



144 THOFGriTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

never succeed in being born again. If I cannot under- 
stand the process any more than I can understand the 
wind, then I am a gone case ; for I certainly don't un- 
derstand either how the wind comes or how it goes." 
And so he went away no wiser. 

Missionaries who go out to teach the heathen, do 
not know any more about spiritual regeneration than 
did Nicodemus. When the affections of men are born 
again, the third chapter of John is of little moment. 
All truth is read with new eyes when the spirit is wise. 
If you be really " born again," the world's Bible, as 
well as Nature, will be new volumes to you. But you 
must be first born again, independently of the Bible, 
and become something within yourself, and then the 
Bible. and Christianity will mean something more than 
a book and a system. . The world also will become a 
new development to you from the day you become har- 
monious and new within yourself. The doctrine is 
plain and beautiful, that the new birth is not possible 
" except a man be bog-n of water and of the Spirit." I 
am glad the account does not read "brandy Siud water," 
or " bread and wine ;" for then, to follow authority, we 
would have to spread a table and proceed to celebrate 
the Eucharist. He did not say a man cannot be born 
again, except through the use of bread and wine, which 
is only a Hebrew act of commemoration. That will do 
as a Passover. (I always pass it over !) A human 
heart is not born again by means of brandy and water, 
nor alone by means of the " spirit." In some Churches 
they dip " converts" into a large tank, simply because 
the Bible-text reads " water" ; and so baptizo becomes 
a very influential mystery in the regenerative vocabu- 



THE NEW BLRTH. 145 

larj. I am so glad that Jesus was led into Jordan. It 
seems to promise that, one of these days, people will 
adopt the rational means of securing physiological per- 
fection. There will be sweeter people on earth when 
bathing becomes universal. Swedenborg and all spiritu- 
ally-minded people say that water is a beautiful emblem 
of purity, renovation, or regeneration. What a spark- 
ling element it is, going through the world, with immor- 
tal music on its bosom, flowing down mountain-slopes 
and forming cascades, and forever hymning gratitude 
and praise to Deity ! No man can enter into the king- 
dom of harmony unless he be born, first, through phy- 
siological harmony, or " water,'' and, second, through 
the balance of his affections and faculties, or through 
the " spirit" of wisdom and justice. 

Many of us will know something more substantial 
about being *«born again'' one of these coming days. 
Mary's son put " water" before " spirit," ^nd so do we. 
It is true physiological reform. There is no mira- 
cle or mystery in it. He said : " A man (that is, 
anybody,) born 'of water' — of physical cleanliness, 
physical neatness, physical harmony, and away from 
disease — and « of the spirit' — that is, of the balance of 
the powers of the heart and faculties of the brain — such 
an one can enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Have 
you tried it ? If you have not, suppose you begin to 
lest the truth of it to-day.) He says the Son of Man 
shall be " lifted up" — the only begotten of God. What 
is the only begotten ? It is the spirit of Truth issuing 
from this beautiful marriage between " water" and 
" spirit" — the nuptial union between " body" and 
" soul." The power and the spirit of Truth rise out— 



146 ' THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 



1 



the only begotten — and thus the individual is " lifted 
up." Then what ? No man can be lifted out unless he 
be first immersed in something. What is he lifted out 
of? Out from his personal Satans — out of sympathy 
with his unclean spirits — out of the pit of his demons. 
What are they ? Passions, appetites, and inversions. 
" The only begotten" is the principle of Truth — rising 
out from the secret recesses of the superior faculties, 
and " lifting" man out of his passions and appetites, 
which are demons and unclean spirits. 

It matters not how great a man's reputation may be, 
if he is, to any extent, in bondage to his stomach, to his 
passions, to any bad habit or acquired appetite — such a 
man is not " saved.'" He realizes nothing of the new 
birth. A selfish man, a deceiver, a hypocrite — a man 
who lives in his family like a beast and before folks 
like a gentleman — has not experienced a change of 
heart. A swinish character always gets " lengthwise 
in the trough." He stretches himself at full length in 
the advantages of his home, and closes out the choicest 
friends of his wife and children. Or the fashionable 
religious woman, member of whatever Church, who will 
require the coachman to go out in the storm to drive 
her to Church, is not born again. And these women 
who work and slave, who are deprived of their just 
rewards, who labor in the kitchens, and who garnish 
the rooms where maidenly attentions are most required 
— these are cheated of an extra twenty-five cents a 
month by persons who go to some graceless church. 
And are such born again ? " Can't you work in my 
kitchen early and late for six dollars and a quarter a 
month ?" Bridget thinks she deserves seven dollars. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 147 

Who would labor for less ? (I would charge twenty, 
if 1 were Bridget.) It is the hardest thing in the world 
for an intelligent person to be Bridget, and to do 
Bridget's work. She ought to have ten or, twelve, 
instead of six and a quarter dollars per month. But 
the favorite orthodox minister gets all the extra money 
which Brids^et ou2:ht to have for her tedious labors. 
All because the religious lady of the house is not just — ■ 
is not " born again" — but is under the dominion of 
popularity, Style, fashion, churchianity, and orthodoxy. 
Look up these opulent Avenues, so full of dressings 
and great mansions. Do they not administer to the 
destruction of the principles of human liberty, justice, 
happiness, and fraternity ? Persons who live in them 
lose much of their simplicity of character, and they are 
Dot teachable. They are unhappy and in " outer dark- 
ness." There are " weepings" in the basements, " wail- 
ings'^ in the bed-chambers, and " gnashings of teeth" 
whenever the large bills come in for payment. I do 
not wonder that they live in outer darkness, nor that 
they go to church to see whether there is anything 
" cheerful" in the prospect after a death by gout. The 
man who needs a Church, or the woman who needs a 
Minister, or the bishop who needs a Bible, or the reli- 
gionist whose feeble faith needs the bolster of a Mira- 
cle, is not born again. Such may have the form — the 
signs and symbols — but not the spirit of Truth. 

A new birth lifts the mind above dependence upon 
externals, for the " only begotten" in the spirit begins 
life by drawing upon the Infinite Father for truths and 
principles. A new birth, therefore, consists in a mar- 
riage between the affections and faculties of the social, 



148 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

intellectual, and moral nature. The spirit will produce 
its kind. Jesus also said that. Did he not say truly : 
" That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; that which 
is born of the spirit, is spirit" ? Don't you believe it ? 
If the Nazarene were in New York to-day, he would 
undoubtedly be thankful for an opportunity to re- 
announce that beautiful principle. Spiritualists would 
all enjoy it, and each would say : " Well, I have heard 
that before — a thing produces its kind." The physical 
body, however healthy and perfect, will produce only 
physical happiness. Aromal emanations from the pure 
body are always precious, life-giving, and beautiful ; 
but the harmonious human mind gives off far sweeter 
aromal fragrances which elevate and chasten all who 
come within their celestial influence. 

Now the body — " water" — and the soul — " spirit" 
— become balanced and married. That is the true 
relation. When there is marriage between body and 
spirit, what is the result ? Progeny. Next comes a 
" new birth." Unless that true, private, interior mar- 
riage takes place, you will experience only an illegiti- 
mate birth. Many obtain such births in revival 
meetings. They deem themselves "converted." Bat 
think the subject all over, and see if you do not decide 
that all such "conversions" are illegitimate births from 
the spirit. Let there be a true marriage between the 
body and the soul — be blended by "water and the 
spirit" — and then observe how purely the offspring is 
legitimate Truth. Then, truly, you begin to compre- 
hend high motives and ideas. First, whatsoever is 
good ; second, whatsoever is useful ; third, whatsoever 
is consistent j fourth, whatsoever is beautiful ; fifth. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 149 

whatsoever is spiritual ; sixth, whatsoever is celestial : 
seventh, whatsoever is heavenly and eternal. The truer 
your marriage, the higher and more beautiful your 
spiritual children. Just in proportion as you grow inde- 
pendent of externals — ^just in proportion as you rise out 
of passions, appetites, unclean spirits, and demons — in 
that same proportion you enter into the kingdom of 
harmony. No matter where you reside, or with whom 
you live, that glorious emancipation and consummation 
will be the result of your interior growth. 

Now, therefore, let us all go to work with " water'* 
— I mean, let us cleanse out our affections. Water 
means purification. Regulate your bodily appetites, 
discipline your hidden passions, harmonize the action 
of your thinking faculties. Erect for yourself a high 
standard ! Set out for personal harmony ! You have 
a watch in the spirit. Just wind up that spirit-watch, 
and see that every second of time is kept right. Wind 
up your habits, and set your house in order. When 
you attain to "inward peace," you are born again. 
Then you can each live a spontaneous, easy, free, 
orderly, happy life. What will be the result ! Truths ! 
Beautiful children are they ! and ever and anon ano- 
ther " new birth." There is recorded on the blank 
leaves of the old Family Bible, by our parents, a 

memorandum, thus: "Born on the day, in the 

year of our Lord," &c. But there are theological 
births which occur under the psychology of the ortho- 
dox minister and pulpit. Tliese theological births are 
seldom recorded in any ■ book under the sun — most 
rarely in the "book of life." As before admitted, 
sometimes such a birth is a true one, and the person 



150 THOUGHTS CONCEENINO EELIGIOK. 

does begin to live a well-ordered and more beautiful 
life. Such cases are extremely rare. The rule is, as 
my Brother Henry truly said, that a man who was 
good before, is essentially no better after his "conver- 
sion." 

There are many " changes of heart" in one's life- 
time, and very many " new births." The marriage of 
the body to the spirit — this is a delightful birth. It is 
delicious harmony, producing what Epicurus termed 
" bodily ease and mental tranquillity." He never could 
have uttered and enforced the principle unless he had 
experienced its birth in his mind. Out of that marriage 
spring attractive and powerful truths ; the progeny are 
exceedingly pure and beautiful ! You can begin to count 
your new births from that time — the birth of good 
truths ; the birth of useful truths ; the birth of consist- 
ent truths ; the birth of beautiful truths ; the birth of 
spiritual truths ; the birth of celestial truths ; the birth 
of heavenly truths ; the birth of iiifinite truths ; the 
birth of God in the heart ; and in all directions, eternal 
Progression. 



THE SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM 
OF HEAVEN. 



" Oh, restless spirit ! Wherefore strain 
Beyond thy sphere ? — 
Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain. 
Are now and here." 

We start with the question. What does the religious 
world mean by the " kingdom of heaven" ? Ahnost 
every one's educational memory will answer that by 
the expression is meant, a place far off — the residence 
of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost ; a solemn 
celestial abode where mirthfulness is not permitted ; 
where persons appear as monks and nuns, beautifully 
arrayed in white, but always with a thoughtful, medi- 
tative, abstract, poetic appearance, and on their faces 
an indescribable expression of unsmiling, cadaverous 
piety. The whole population of the Paradisaical realm, 
according to the world's estimation, wear an unsport- 
ful, reverential, pious aspect ; all engaged in the same 
rapt devotions to the august family of Gods. It must 
be a cold and dreary place for human nature as it is 
now constituted ; a place of unbroken circumspection 
and habitual interiority. It makes us feel as though 
we were on the verge of an everlasting graveyard to 
think of it; the churchyard, with its white mementos, 
with its many reminders of that ghostly purity which 



152 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

is to characterize the few who are saved by the blood 
of the Lamb. 

The religious world, you know, not only looks upon 
the " kingdom of heaven" as a place afar off, but also 
as a situation attainable alone by means of the superna- 
tural, miracle of the atonement. Thus both the " king- 
dom'' and the " road" are absurd to human reason and 
comprehension, and very properly the preachers repu- 
diate the independent use of Reason on such pulpit 
questions. The miracle of the Atonement constitutes a 
sort of Air-line railroad to the kingdom of eternal 
monotony ! No one pretends to know how his reddened 
iniquities can be whitened. No one pretends to know 
why the angels will adore the blackest sinner the 
moment he arrives, via Atonement Railroad, and knocks 
at the great magical gate of St. Peter. It is all a 
stupendous miracle to the thick-headed sinner ; but the 
Church tells him, " Believe ; it is all the more gracious 
for its mystery, and all the more like God because of 
its incomprehensibility." And thus the stupid sinner, 
not having thought ten minutes consecutively on the 
subject since his birth, drops out of skepticism and rolls 
into the lap of that mysterious conviction, and next 
permits himself to fall into a slumber of dogmatic faith 
most deceptive, which the Church pronounces the 
" sleep of the blessed" — all, if only in his soul he adopts 
the Gospel of Miracle by which the consequences of 
all sins shall be purged away. 

In the course of my lectures on the "Summer-Land" 
it will be shown that no atonement-treated sinner 
realizes beyond the tomb, what these pulpit accoucheurs 
say he may in unbounded confidence expect to receive 



4 



SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KIXGDOM OF HEAVEN. 153 

at the hands of the Savior. Memory is an undying 
thinking power, gathering its education from all tlie 
faculties, and from every thing or influence that ever 
touched them — a power which weaves and winds every 
impression up snugger, and snugger, and snugger — 
reeling all thoughts firmer and more close together than 
threads on the roll of the silk-spinner — all which is to 
be unrolled through all the post-historic labyrinths of 
the great future, standing at every moment in the tem- 
ple of personal consciousness as an accusing angel. And 
then, what men call " Conscience" — the sense of recti- 
tude which every faculty bestows upon its possessor — 
locks arms with Memory, and thus the two dwell 
always with the individual, however ideally dressed he 
may be ; however angelic in personal appearance ; how- 
ever accomplished in the scholastic arts and fashionable 
attainments. 

But we will not dwell upon that subject this morn- 
ing. I have but simply alluded to the world's theolo- 
gical conception of the miracle of " Atonement." How 
many believe it to be the directest road to the king- 
dom of heaven! My object in speaking on the point 
was to declare against that foolish and pernicious doc- 
trine of miraculously saving sinners from the legitimate 
consequences of sin. As a theory it is immeasurably 
worse than the system of the allopathic medical 
schools, which hold that men are better for swal- 
lowing a dose of calomel on every disturbance of 
the liver. This error is not a whit more pernicious to 
the body than is the doctrine of the ecclesiastical 
schools, that " faith" in the vicarious atonement is per- 
manently good to save mankind from the consequences 
of sin in the soul. 



154 



THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 



To enter directly upon the subject, I will call your 
attention — 

First: To the fact that every person has an Ideal, 
which to realize would, in that person's opinion, consti- 
tute " perfect happiness," and perfect happiness is the 
usual understanding of the " kingdom of heaven." 
Every one will remember his or her Ideal. An ideal 
comes, first, out of the particular organic structure of 
the mind. Second, out of the condition of the spirit 
which lives within that structure. So that a person's 
ideal is material or spiritual, little or large, just in pro- 
portion to the construction of mind ; and besides, the 
ideal will always represent the status of the spirit, 
which resides beneath those organs and behind those 
structural conditions. 

Second : Every person's Ideal is modified by the 
force and flow and shape of Circumstances. And hence 
the mind's Ideal will partake invariably of the image 
and likeness to the circumstances with which it is sur- 
rounded. 

Third : These influential and shaping circumstances 
of your organization, and then the conditions of your 
spirit, are what originate and modify your Ideal. All 
persons receive some form of education — all experience 
some kind of development of the internal powers. 
Much valuable education to the faculties comes by fric- 
tion, contact, imitation, and the force of discipline in the 
society of those about you. They constitute your severest 
teachers, and the eff'ect of their painful teaching is edu- 
cation. Perhaps it will be a mis-education ; perhaps 
an un-education ; perhaps a complete education ; per- 
haps it will be nothing but consciousness of uuhappv 



SHOETEST KOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 156 

ignorance and discord. But whatever the mental effect, 
which may be comprehended under the general term 
" education," that is sure to greatly modify the Ideal 
which your circumstances, your organization, and your 
spiritual status first developed within the sanctuary of 
the mind. And this " Ideal" is the first thing for us to 
analyze, because its complete attainment, its actualiza- 
tion, the embodiment of the internal image, is the 
individual's conception of the " kingdom of heaven" — 
or, perfect personal happiness. 

In order to ascertain what is meant by the spiritual 
status^ also what is meant by the structure of the mind, 
I will reaffirm the fact that man's spirit is constituted 
of several fundamental principles. These principles are 
internal and inseparable. Phrenologists have enumer- 
ated them up from 30 to 39 ; some have subdivided and 
counted mental organs to the number of 40. I am not 
impressed that this enumeration is the practical one for 
an internal and final analysts. It has always seemed 
to me, nevertheless, that the classification of phrenology 
was valuable to the mind, inasmuch as thereby it came 
into a sort of external acquaintance with itself. These 
cerebral convolutions, formed and forming from within, 
are real indications of exercises in specific nerves and 
substances of the brain. Thus Phrenology demonstrates 
that these nerves are inhabited by.mind, or spirit ; and 
where the spirit is most exercised, there will take place 
and be visible the largest protuberance. Phrenologic- 
al classifications have been based almost entirely upon 
this understanding, that wherever there is a projection 
or depression, there the brain is either exceedingly 
much used, or greatly too idle. This organ-plan of the 



156 THOUGHTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 

brain was primitively necessary ; and the Phrenologic- 
al classification will continue to be necessary for many 
ages. It is a kind of gate-of-invitation through which 
people can go easily in and out — thus, to some extent, 
forming an acquaintance with themselves, and particu- 
larly in a pre-eminently practical way. 

Now, if it be true that there are thirty-eight or 
forty brain-gates to your spirit, as the best phrenolo- 
gists say, then you will be obliged intellectually to go 
through each one in order to attain to a knowledge of 
yourself; not only so, but you would also be obliged to 
flow out through the brain-channels in order to express 
yourself truly to a wife, to a brother, to a sister, to the 
world in general. 

Now I think it is every one's conception that hap- 
piness consists in an equal development of the spiritual 
parts and physical organs, and the equal gratification 
of their natural desires. I suppose this to be the short- 
est and completest statement of what would constitute 
the " happiness" of a person — the supply of every want 
without friction, and the gratification of every desire 
without exorbitant expense or excessive industry. In 
fact, the ability to bring ends to means, and to adapt 
physical conditions without friction to the requisitions 
of the spirit, would constitute the first, clearest, quick- 
est, directest fulfillment of the "ideal" of personal rest, 
peace and satisfaction with life — in a word. Happi- 
ness. 

I wish now to show you that the realization of such 
an " ideal" is at present impossible on the face of tlie 
earth. But let me here mention that the fundamental 
'principles of the human soul, according to the cassifica- 



SHORTEST EOAD TO TITE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 157 

tion of the Harmonial Philosophy, are only twelve in 
number. There are six fundamental principles of Love, 
and six of Wisdom. [See 3d vol. Harmoxia.] The 
six radical affections are the ingredients, constituent^^, 
or the fountain sources from which flow life, motion, 
sensation, and also the mysterious consciousness of con- 
sciousness — the wondrous psychological fact that a 
human mind is conscious of its own consciousness — 
aware of itself — the ever present " I,"' which is the 
central reality. Hence the power of the human mind 
to go into deep solitude, and yet be in the midst of 
things. Hence the power of the human soul to retire 
on the far-off isle of the sea, and call poetry and music 
and thought and affection and friendship and philoso- 
phy and angels and Deity, all into its service and con- 
sciousness. These twelve faculties in the spirit, these 
twelve principles, are like all other principles, everlast- 
ing ; and not only so, but it is true that each separate 
principle makes a perpetual demand upon tJie everlasting 
universe in which it finds itself ever-recurringly con- 
scious ! 

Hence the doctrines in the intuitions of the soul that 
man essentially pre-existed, and also that he is destined 
to live after the destruction of all these physical 
appearances. It is this Intuition that gives the sense 
of weight about the spirit. The soul longs to leave this 
realm of dust and discord, and to sweep on through 
interminable spheres — endeavoring thus to realize her 
treasured " ideal" by striving to attain to the ultima 
thule of the present aspiration. 

Each of these twelve radical and eternal principles in 
the constitution of the human mind makes, as I before 



158 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

said, requisitions more or less vivid, positive, and ener- 
getic, upon their individual possessor, and that, too, even 
in this state of existence. Out of their wondrous depths 
spring the onward-drawing " ideal," which, attained, 
is termed " happiness," but which, not attained, is pro- 
ductive of unrest and dissatisfaction, and a feeling of 
incompleteness which ever and anon flashes painfully 
through and through the self-conscious mind. 

It is indisputable, I think, that " happiness" would 
result from the harmonious action and melodious blend- 
ing of all the faculties. Discordant minds cannot be 
happy. Only those who travel without friction along 
the "shortest and directest road to the kingdom of 
heaven," can realize what it is to tread the high royal 
road that leads to happiness unutterable. But there is 
many a person who has the constitutional misfortune to 
be a sort of grindstone, revolving in the center of out- 
ward circumstances and weight. Such people not only 
make other people and things with which tbey come in 
contact awful sharp and severe in feeling and dispo- 
sition, but exceedingly like a cross-cut saw — working 
against each other with irresistible strength and with 
painful, destructive friction. Such minds reciprocate each 
other's favors by spinning and rasping off the surface- 
steel. They work and chafe and wear away the nap on 
the spirit of those about them, until they get down to the 
bleeding sensations of life itself, and then come the 
depressions of despair, with the feeling that the wound 
which is bleeding day by day in the family, under the 
very roof of apparent and reputed happiness, and in the 
society which is recognized as fashionable, can never be 
healed of the feud or forgiven the offense. 



SIIOETEST HOAB TO THE KrN"GDOM OF HEAVEN. 150 

Unrest is the testimony which the Eternal of the 
universe has implanted in the constitution of the spirit, 
saying, " You cannot spiritually die so long as there is an 
unsatisfied desire. Your life will continue so long as 
there exists within you a want that has never been met, 
a condition that has not been fulfilled, or great prophe- 
cies that have never met their entire satisfaction in the 
unfoldments of Science, Art, or History." This intui- 
tion is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the 
immortality of the soul. 

Men undertake by prayer to bring " the kingdom 
of heaven on earth." It is the old error in masonry of 
building an impossible temple, which the children of 
Babel first attempted in their ignorance, and which, 
as the story most beautifully illustrates, was a stupend- 
ously practical failure in materialistic religion. The 
ambition to make a mammoth broad-church balloon, to 
construct some theological Great Eastern, or to erect 
some skyward pointing temple upon which mankind can, 
without losing their present physical relations, reach 
the kingdom of Peace, is nothing but a foolish dream 
of error and ignorance. 

Perfect happiness, be it remembered, is the received 
definition of the kingdom of heaven. This is what all 
the world is after, and it will have nothing less. Eat 
let me ask, Why do many apparently practical persons 
go " through hell" in order to arrive at the heavenly 
kingdom? Is it because they fancy that "the under- 
ground-railroad" in experience and religion, is the 
shortest and the safest way ? or is it because such per- 
sons err in their fancy and judgments as to the means 



160 THOrJGHTS CONCEENING EELIGIOIT. 

by which happiness is attainable and procurable ? 
These questions are important. 

It is instructive to note the mistakes and errors of 
men respecting the means of happiness. I saw a man 
who supposed that his present happiness and success 
would be promoted by stealing a horse and riding swiftly 
across the State of Illinois to meet a companion who 
was expecting him. Not having the money to purchase 
a conveyance, and^ not being able to go in the regular 
way of travel, he attempted to secure his happiness by 
the adoption of spurious and vicious means. He sup- 
posed that he would secure present comfort by securing 
his ends ; which, instead, secured him a great deal of 
physical confinement in jail ; for nothing like spiritual 
rest could issue from his mistake. At first he was 
intellectually infatuated by the conviction that if he 
could only but steal a horse he would be, for that time, 
at least, comparatively happy. Did he not sadly err 
as to the means of personal happiness ? Yet somehow 
I never supposed that that man designed to be evil — in 
fact, I believe he did not premeditate a crime, but 
adopted the readiest means of immediate success? but, 
like hundreds of others, he found that the path of error 
anfl injustice is the most " hellish road" he ever trav- 
eled to reach the heaven of development. 

Once I met a young lady whose " ideal" was a 
mansion — one just out of Boston. She was beautiful, 
unmarried, the darling of rich and accomplished pa- 
rents ; the father a distinguished, influential banker, 
and the mother once a belle at Newport and often a 
central figure at Saratoga. In noticing this case it 
is well to recall our propositions. Her mind had 



S:aOETEST EOAD TO THE IvINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 161 

inherited a peculiar structure, and the structure gave 
birth to her ideal, and the ideal, borrowing itself from 
the spiritual status, declared that " perfect happiness" 
consisted in the splendid equipments and proprietor- 
ship of a beautiful mansion near Roxbury. I saw her 
and heard her ideal expressed several years ago.- In 
three years from that time she was a wife, and in two 
years alterward (as I have been informed) she formally 
and proudly entered upon her ideal life in a great, rich, 
domestic establishment. I have heard of her twice 
since that year. Is she happy ? Just think of a " ma- 
terial house" for a spirit endowed with twelve radical, 
eternal principles ! That young wife's mind was har- 
nessed to her home, which rises up with mystic 
grandeur, and which is dressed from base to attic in 
the most fashionable style, with all the appliances of 
compound comfort and distressing luxury — indeed, so 
beautiful are the chairs, and sofas, and tete-a-tetes, that 
they had to be immediately clad in very common look- 
ing stuff, and so concealed were they that an observer 
hardly knew, without being told, whether the gorgeous 
furniture was made of anything superior to pine boards. 
Chestnut 'or red-oak saplings, whitewashed and dressed 
up in coarse brown linen, would have looked quite as 
well. Beautiful things ! So costly, so exquisite and 
so fragible, that not a child dared to move round 
among them ; and as for grown persons, it was to them 
almost like treading upon the honey-combed edge of 
Vesuvius. The young wife was nervous all over the 
house. Her nerves were just as numerous and as much 
present in the bedroom as in the kitchen. I know a gen- 
tleman who said he had tried to find a place in that 



162 THOUGHTS CONCEENINa RELIGION. 

great splendid house where her nerves were not. Nerv- 
ous ladies are all so very happy in great city houses ! 
City doctors know that many patients have had their 
" ideals" beautifully embodied in the possession of do- 
mestic splendors! Servants and waiting-maids know 
the ubiquitous nature of the nervous system. Dust ! it 
is the special horror of the soul with twelve radical 
principles. Well, there is, perhaps, a spiritual meaning 
in such abhorrence. If my friend Emerson were here, 
perhaps he would say it means the testimony of the 
spirit against the crude earth. That interpretation is 
poetical, philosophical, and constitutional. But the 
habit of being more conscious of dirt than of refinement, 
is the chronic difficulty with a great many people wlio 
pretend to be " perfectly happy'' in great town or city 
dwellings. The cook in the aforesaid lady's house was a 
portion of her happiness, and the girl who kept the cook 
at work was another happiness, and so was the girl whose 
special duty was to see that the girl who attended 
to the cook did her work, and then the other girl, whose 
labor was to visit daily all the extra rooms, and to 
see that all parts of the house were exquisitely arranged 
and put *' to rights" just ten minutes before two o'clock, 
P. M. — all parts of the lady's ideal ! It was all deemed 
necessary — all beautiful ! And when the time came for 
parties ! You know what exquisite joy there is in the 
flutter of a fashionable party ! And physicians know 
what a healthy pulse is, and they also know when it 
beats way up ten or fifteen beyond fever-heat, which is 
always the case when there is " perfect happiness" in 
the ideal possession of a great mansion, and especially 
when a Party is about to be inaugurated on a grand 



SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVIi^N. 163 

scale, " regardless of expense." Joy everywhere ! but 
not iu the " ideal" of that mistaken, miseducated, but 
wealthy wife in old Massachusetts. She would not 
attend a lecture like this ; would not go to hear James 
Freeman Clark in Boston ; would never hear Theodore 
Parker ; thinks that the Devil, William Lloyd Garri- 
son, and Wendell Phillips, constitute the infernal 
trinity ! Oh, so " happy !" 

Once I met a gentleman whose ideal of "perfect 
happiness" consisted in roving o'er land and sea. He 
longed to get away from the perpetual embarrassments 
of home; to throw off the entanglements of a wife who 
had borne him many children. At length he was at 
liberty, as he thought, to pursue his idea of happiness. 
So he started on a journey, which terminated in China ; 
then it lapped over and terminated in New York ; but 
he was scarcely perfectly happy yet ! Though he had 
all the buffetings of journeying and all the mishaps and 
losses of unfortunate enterprises, yet he found, on his 
arrival in New York, that " perfect happiness" con- 
sisted in doing almost the same thing right over again, 
only he had concluded that he would embark for a differ- 
ent port and on the other side of the rolling globe. I 
do not know how perfect his present happiness is, but 
I know that when he had made the tour of twenty-four 
thousand miles he reported himself, and said that jour- 
neying was a good deal of " a tax," and he would give 
it up if he had not acquired " the habit," which, like 
tobacco, must be chewed over and again in order to be 
perfectly enjoyed ! Poor fellow ! He has cherished 
that " ideal," working on through the dreary wastes of 
ice and snow in the Arctic regions, seeking in desol-a- 



164 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

tion for the experience of perfect happiness. It comes 
not out of his mistaken ideal. I asked him one day 
concerning his mother, and found that she had never 
been away from home long enough to gratify her desire 
for an excursion, and this desire was strongest in her 
just before his birth. Thus the great law of reproduc- 
tion is reaffirmed: her desire to take a journey not 
being gratified, became the source of misery every hour. 
She was relieved from it only by exhaustion and dis- 
ease, but never by a natural gratification of the imperi- 
ous desire. Inheriting this consequential construction, 
and also imbibing the spiritual status which that desire 
necessarily imparted, on the law of reflex action, to the 
depths of her nature, her child was unreasonably cen- 
trifugated from his wife, and from all the endearments 
of the family and home. The blind impulse actuated 
his thoughts and led him into the open field of loose, 
aimless, objectless journeying. Of course he is not 
happy. How can a man be happy who holds in his 
constitution twelve radical principles, when nothing is 
done to feed and gratify them save journeying over the 
outward world? 

I know a person who supposed that marriage would 
be the climacteric point in the happiness of the soul. 
Many there are who look upon -that as the relation. 
All such are, I think, truly inspired with a sovereign 
and eternally important conviction. But those who 
expect that even the highest gratification of Conjugal 
Love will satisfy the eleven other mental principles, will 
and themselves mistaken in eleven parts of their exist- 
ence. I have known persons who sought the marriage 
relation and found it, and who considered that, at the 



SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 165 

time, it was the coronation of the heart; but at length 
thcv found that the crown of happiness had not settled 
upon their heads, and that yet other and equally im- 
perative demands were made from within. Ere long 
the unsatisfied pair quarreled with each other, because 
they had not wisdom to see that eleven parts of their 
existence could not be at rest and satisfied with the 
gratification of the one. There was restlessness in the 
eleven parts of their existence and complete gratifica- 
tion in only one; so they complained to each other of 
each other ; and from their discord came diabolism, 
and out of that a brood of Satans instead of angels ; 
and thus the conjugal home was rent asunder like the 
temple, because their idea of happiness was built upon 
a foundation of sand ; and although they were beauti- 
fully and truly married, and were, as a consequence, 
capable of building up the " harmonial union,'' yet they 
sadly and madly separated, and will probably remain 
so until some divine attraction either brings them 
together, or else sets upon their hearts the seal of eter- 
nal divorce. 

How many beautiful love-temples you and I have 
seen, in the once happy home, all in ruins ! Temples 
of domestic conjugal happiness rent in twain by these 
great, burly ignoramuses, who have much money, but 
deficiency of judgment. Such men are strong in the 
arm, but " weak in ye head.'' And ladies, too, per- 
fectly accomplished in the externals — knowing by 
intuition what it is to love, and as well what it would 
be to be loved, but who have not met their mates tii 
the philosophic basis ; and so both men and women, in 
all parts of the world, do not often travel on the 



166 THOUGHTS CONCEENma EELIGIOK". 

directest, shortest, safest road to the kingdom of 
heaven. Standing socially against each other like 
sworn enemies, the quarrel begins through the use of 
affectionate terms in excess, beautiful little epithets. 
Even before persons they begin with a little curl of 
satire around the mouth, to name each other " My 
dove V " my darling V " my precious !" Alas ! it is to 
be feared that they have each purchased a ticket on the 
under-ground railroad. All because the married do 
not know that conjugal love is but one-twelfth part of 
the individual's life and being. 

You know probably that I have been, for the last 
fifteen years, so related to the public as to receive ap- 
plications from persons in every imaginable situation. 
Some have lost faith in prayer; they do not believe in 
the confessional, nor in the dismal doctrines of the 
Protestant clergy. Many such minds do not know what 
is best for them to do. Some of them frequently visit 
" mediums ;" others go to " clairvoyants," who have 
some secret knowledge of things, persons, &c., and may 
be able to vouchsafe true counsel. I have received 
almost innumerable letters from every class of persons. 
(My correspondence during the past ten years is a 
remarkable chapter in the history of human spiritual 
necessity.) I have sometimes almost commiserated the 
orthodox God, if his ears had to hear those selfish 
prayers that are uttered during the weakest and most 
contracted and foolish days, hours, and moments of 
men's lives. Awful is the internal history of human 
shallowness which the world's prayers betray — so full 
of practical imbecilities, of insanities, of special self- 
interest, of inexpressible follies among people who 



SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 107 

really have reputations for being sensible — men praying 
for God to do for them what they would not of them- 
selves deem reasonable for any brother to ask of them. 
I remember the case of a lady whose "perfect happi- 
ness" she thought would consist in becoming a mother. 
Some two years afterward she became a mother, and 1 
distinctly recall the experiences which she related. 
After the second year, she found that perfect happiness 
would consist, not so much in being a mother, but in 
knowing for a certainty that her darling little Eddie 
would grow up to be " a good man." She was exceed- 
ingly anxious to get away out of the city into a beauti- 
ful little retired place, where no bad children could 
molest him or teach him bad habits, but her finances 
forbade it. Hence the lady's "perfect happiness" on 
becoming a mother was nothing but the beginning of 
solicitude, anxiety, and unrest. 

Now, what was that good lady's error? I need 
not mention it. You know that she had eleven other 
elements in her spiritual organization which a child 
could never more than partially gratify. Parental love 
is one, and only one of the radical principles of the hu- 
man spirit ; and even when that is perfectly gratified 
there are yet remaining eleven others which have equally 
imperative demands that " will not down at your bid- 
ding." And the lady's error was her irrational belief 
that her " happiness" would be complete with the grati- 
fication of one-twelfth part of her nature. There was 
her mistake, and it is the error of thousands. Indeed, 
this illustrates the entire secret of nearly all human 
mistakes. The error consists in mistaking the means 
of happiness, ^j the attainment of one point you 



1G8 THOUGHTS CONCERNING KELIGION. 

thence proceed on the false notion that all the other 
parts of your nature will receive corresponding gratifi- 
cation and be at rest. 

How many are there who are made " perfectly 
Lappy" in the actualization of the "ideal'' that fortune 
or wealth is in itself the only important ultimate ! You 
know how few there are who are made truly happy in 
that way. Many there are who wish to-day to try the 
experiment of acquiring property. John Jacob Astor 
attained his "ideal." I suppose that many of you 
remember what his past testimony was — he merely 
received " his victuals and clothes ;" and yet he was the 
man of fortune. The more fortune, the more the slave. 
When the cares of property multiply and replenish 
themselves in your path, the greater becomes your ser- 
vitude and the further you recede from the kingdom of 
true peace and happiness. I am glad that Mary's and 
Joseph's son saw and uttered this spiritual truth. No 
merely rich man, with his money-bags " strapped upon 
his back," could enter heaven any more than could a 
camel go through the eye of a needle. When the young 
man of fortune came to him and declared that he had 
done all the unutterable things, had performed all the 
virtues and made all the trips to obtain happiness, then 
the Spiritual man said, " Sell what thou hast" — that is, 
put it beneath you, make it subservient to true human 
interests, let it not be your master. That is what is 
meant by selling your "possessions." It is not neces- 
sary to throw away your property- upon Thomas, and 
Richard, and Henry ; but the true way is to use your 
wealth for good purposes, and not be used by it. The 
Harmonial Philosophy teaches that self-possession — 



SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 109 

true self-ownership — is one of the paths leading to the 
shortest road to the kingdom of heaven. 

I know many citizens who are made corporeally hap- 
py by the wealth of others. At least a hundred and fifty 
persons are made daily more comfortable, their exist- 
ence is made to them vastly more tolerable, and" their 
paths of labor are strewn with perfumed flowers, all 
because certain good property-men are not servants to 
their riches^ but they have " sold all they have" — that 
is, they have become spiritual philosophers, and are 
using their means with discretion and with gratitude, 
for the augmentation and expansion of human happi- 
ness. That is for them the " shortest road ;" they walk 
therein ; and such men are, therefore, always philan- 
thropic, cheerful, and happy. 

I know a man of this stamp who has a beautiful 
social and moral presence ; his very breath is imbued 
with purity and benevolence, like the fragrance of 
roses. Such a human spirit has in itself the beautiful 
realization of sitting down in the kingdom of heaven 
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob — a sweet, harmo- 
nious, largely magnanimous character, beaming and 
graceful out of his goodness. I also know ladies of 
this noble, regal, heavenly pattern. They generously 
give of their abundance, but are not the less wealth}^ 
They do not squander on personal ornamentation ; nei- 
ther do they throw away riches without thought into 
the treasuries of old Missionary Societies, when it 
requires $4.99 to pay the expense of one cent to the 
Heathen. Nay, nay. They give their money to the 
worthy objects that are within their gates, or to cases 
of want just within the radius of the eye, and to humble. 



170 THOUGHTS CONCERNINa RELIGION. 

industrious poor who come within the reach of the 
spirit. 

I wish, therefore, to bring to your mind clearly and 
distinctly, without one exception, that the secret of 
happiness consists in removing unnecessary friction in 
one's own "pathway, and in assisting to remove it from 
the pathway of others. Whoso doeth such deeds is a 
possessor of tickets on the shortest, safest, directest 
road to the kingdom of heaven. 

First, however, it is philosophical to take it for 
granted that this world cannot bring you the perfect 
and complete realization of any one of your interior 
" ideals ;" and, secondly, that an ideal which is but 
partially fulfilled can never fully satisfy the twelve 
radical elements of the human spirit. Hence your na- 
ture demands a Sphere of life after death for the pur- 
pose of growth. Mankind are made upon imperishable 
principles, each one of which is the harmonial voice of 
God, which speaks through air parts of the tree of life, 
moving its leaves in the winds of circumstances, and 
vibrating them in the currents of terrestrial affairs. 
Each one of these principles, I repeat, is a word from 
heaven — from God's own central spirit — saying, "Your 
best ideals are not attainable in three score and ten 
years ; no, nor in a century, neither in a hundred cen- 
turies, nor in myriads of millions of ages, through all 
which time you will yet be young in the Summer- 
Land. 

The Spiritualist is a philosophic believer in eternal 
life. He cannot help it. Every voice from heaven 
proclaims eternal ideality^ and, at the same time, gives 
promise to reason for an eternal opportunity for actuali- 



SHOETEST EOAD TO THE KIISTGDOM OF HEAVEN. 171 

zation ! It is this fundamental, natural, spontaneous, 
intuitive logic — dominating all the schools of Material- 
ism — that will not down to any man's argument, which 
is the upwelling revelation of truth from within, 
that no ideal, however perfectly realized, can satisfy 
the whole spirit ! And this dissatisfaction, this unrest, 
this yearning, is a premonitory symptom, so to say, of 
the future which is in store for man's mind, and which 
must open, like a flower in the garden of truth, to 
receive and welcome man to the inextinguishable light 
of the future. By planting yourself upon these twelve 
radical principles, the destructive /ric^ioTi of the present 
will be measurably removed, and at once you will find 
yourself a pilgrim on the shortest road. 

No man can be perfectly cosmopolitan and wholly 
catholic. No man can do all things with equal skill, 
pleasure, or profit. A natural merchant cannot be as 
good a mechanic ; it is neither easy nor pleasurable for 
him to be. It is not easy for a natural musician to be 
a successful merchant, nor for a mechanic to be a suc- 
cessful musician. It would not be easy and pleasurable 
for Blondin to enter the pulpit, nor for the devotional 
minister to be a pugnacious and logical lawyer, nor for 
the natural lawyer to enter upon the practice of medi- 
cine. It is not easy for man to take the position of 
woman, neither is it easy for woman to merge out into 
externalisms and do battle with the entanglements 
which give pleasure to the physical man ; but, at present, 
each one is hampered and bound to a special sphere, 
neither realizing the implanted "ideal." For the 
present stage of human progress this incompleteness is 
necessary and unavoidable. But by removing /ric^io/i, 



-172 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

the life which we are all involuntarily leading will be 
more freighted with solid happiness. The road of life 
would be less dusty and more attractive. And then, 
most of the present iniquities and miseries which clog 
and throng our way — the stumbling-blocks of igno- 
rance in each one's path on earth — would be utterly 
destroyed. If, for example, you have any habit which 
causes your daily physical and domestic life to be a 
source of annoyance, down with it ! Because, by inherent 
streno^th, vou are " master of the situation." 

There is no primogeniture in this harmonial doc- 
trine. No man inherits special wealth and extra power 
because he is the oldest son in the family of God. No ! 
Every man and woman inherits equal wealth and power 
from the innermost. Every one is born with an equal 
fortune. Alas! some there are among us on earth who 
yet live in the slumberous quietude of idiocy, leading 
only an imbecile life ; others there are, among all races 
of civilized man, who have not yet escaped beyond the 
animal plane of feeling and conduct. But it is your 
prerogative to look from a high standpoint, and with 
great tenderness, upon the less fortunate in the world. 
Remember that each human brain is a nest of eggs des- 
tined to hatch out twelve immortal doves, which are 
twelve radical, impersonal Principles. Your mission is 
to remove " stumbling-blocks," not only out of the way 
of your individual paths, but the paths of others— - 
not merely not to " lay a straw in the path"' of your 
neighbor, but to take away straws that some other less 
spiritual person has laid there to work a brother's or 
sister's misfortune. Take them all away ! Down with 
your Satans! (I mean your Appetites and your Pas- 



SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEA.VEN. 173 

sions.) Of course I do not advise any one to attempt 
to live without appetites and without passions ; but this 
is the point: let no man or woman be mastered and 
overcome bj them. Put all " unclean spirits" beneath 
your feet ; bruise the serpent's head, crush and kill 
him. 

If you belonged to these popular pagodas — if you 
worshiped in these temples of the gods that are without 
these walls — I could not " preach" to you -such things. 
You would be unfriendly to the ideal of progress, and 
would have a different conception of the object of life ; 
and as for your sins, why, you would expect happiness 
only by and through the " atonement." But I will ask 
you, friends of Freedom ! whether, standing as you do, 
firmly and independently on your own feet — feeling all 
the way up your back the ascending vertebrae of har- 
monial and independent life, each vertebra representing 
a round in a Jacob's ladder on which influences descend 
and ascend — the brain being a nest of the faculties to 
be hatched into immortality — the whole a conscious 
oneness — standing thus, are you to consent to be mas- 
tered by " demons" and "satans" that are nothing but 
personal passions^ and by " unclean spirits" that are 
nothing but your own over-indulged appetites ? Never ! 
You know as well as I that the " shortest road to the 
kingdom of heaven" is to become master of your own 
'proper person ! Whatever your situation in life, whether 
you reside in the city of New York, or away in some 
rural home — whether your business is to cook or pro- 
vide dinner for the family who employ you, or whether 
you are partaker of a dinner which others have pre- 
pared — in either case, as under every temptation, your 



174 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

spiritual mission should render you " a peace-maker," 
and thus remove friction. By so doing, or even by 
so desiring to do in secret, you shorten the road to the 
kingdom of heaven, not only to yourself, but for every 
other human pilgrim on the globe. 

And yet, let no one suppose that he or she is to 
be " perfectly" happy in this world. It is a shallow, 
idiotic, and illogical dream ; it is the very opposite, the 
antagonist of the doctrine of universal progress. What 
is a perfectly contented person ? What sort of a mind 
is that which feels no onward-drawing needs or wants ? 
It is an idiot, with no ambition to move from its 
place — a nobody ! What brought you out from your 
warm homes on this cold, wintry morning? Because 
you thought you would be happier by coming to this 
Hall. What is that which will soon take you away 
from this Hall ? Because, when this discourse is 
finished and the choir have sung, you will then think 
you will feel happier to go away. Whatever motive 
immediately moves you, it is all traceable to that im- 
pulse within which dominates logic — the spirit of 
" change," of " progress," of " development," which 
rises higher than the highest steeple in this city, say- 
ing, " Onward ! father, mother, brother, sister." And 
onward you go into the open air — and away toward 
other attractions. Central Park, Brooklyn, to the meet- 
ing of friends, to your home — anywhere, to get happi- 
ness. Never perfect after all ! 

Well, that is what you should always expect, and 
not be disappointed. For myself I am glad that I find 
just what I philosophically know that I shall find, not 
" perfect happiness," but the present partial gratifica- 



SHORTEST EOAID TO THE EINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 175 

tion of honest, healthful desires — ^just this, and nothing 
more, nothing less, unless I should greatly err in the 
use of means and opportunities. 

Can you not, therefore, be rational ? To be rational 
in everything is a ticket on the " shortest road to the 
kingdom of heaven." Try the opposite course. Make 
the worst of your life, as million^ on the earth do, for 
want of true knowledge of means, uses, and opportuni- 
ties. Some shallow heads think it is very fine to be full 
of taste and full of petulancy ; they fancy it is smart to 
be able to scowl at every annoyance, and to wrinkle up 
the thoughtful brow, and to make decided speeches with 
inflated language on very small occasions; very smart 
to use the word " infinite'' about the limited varieties 
of pocket-handkerchiefs ; and lastly, it is the hight of 
sense and of fashion to join the vast army of ladies who 
go shopping at Stewart's great Broadway agony. All 
this looks to many people like being as high in wit and 
happiness as anybody can be outside of pandemonium. 

I tell you now the day will come — and each of you 
will remember it after it passes as well as the fact of 
being here this morning — when mankind will look down 
upon all this externalism with unutterable co7itempt, and 
not less with self-sorrow and unpardonable shame. 
Why should this be ? Because such a life is unworthy ! 
That is the reason, and it is sufficient. Every intelli- 
gent person knows that the " shortest way to the king- 
dom of heaven" is, not to expect in this world the 
perfect fulfillment of any one " ideal," but, instead, to 
vemoYe friction from the track of progress, to be indus- 
trious and comfortably happy in the midst of what you 
may have — this is the surest and safest side-road leading 



176 THOUGHTS COKCEENING RELIGION. 

toward what is better and superior in the straight and 
harmonious waj. 

I stand before jou as an illustration of the truth of 
what I am now affirming. I will not refer to my his- 
tory — every step of which is a living demonstration 
that a man can come from the darkest place in the 
social Egypt and find the promised Land. In the supe- 
rior condition of mind a man can stand on his own feet, 
the proprietor of ihose great truths which no man's 
material wealth can purchase. A person with such a 
history may stand as a representative merely — a kind 
of philosophical promise — of what is possible in the ulti- 
mate of every human life ! Let all welcome whatso- 
ever gives hope to the millions. 

And now. Sisters and Brothers, it is just as easy to 
commence from this hour as any future time. Com- 
mence to make the best, and not the worst, of what is 
yours or what may come. Shorten the road to human 
happiness, and you will greatly lengthen the duration 
of human life. Do not wait for the future. Begin 
to-day ! Now, from this moment, say, " I will not be a 
grindstone ; I will rather be a fountain and a day- 
spring on high. I will not be a moon to anybody ; I 
will be either a sun or a fixed star." 

Can you not say so, and indorse it by practice? It 
will sweeten and strengthen your feelings as soon as 
you commence. You will look in the mirror with 
vastly more satisfaction. How few wrinkles there will 
soon be on your face ! How much cleaner and purer 
your skin is ! The eye looks beaming and cheerful, 
and there is a clear, heavenly light in it, which testifies 
that you have adopted a new life! And when you 



SH0ETE3T KOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF KEAYEN. 177 

awake in the morning, it will seem to you as though 
everybody's existence had commenced anew, and that 
there is no dreary past in your own history ! All this 
goes on the fact that you have ordered down your vehe- 
ment passions, and said to your unclean spirits and. 
demons : " Away to the dark and dreary past — away ! I 
turn my hack forever upon you ! You shall not again 
come before me ! If you do, you shall he at once consigned 
to an everlasting death !" 

These sayings are not fictions. I know that a true 
Harmonial Philosopher — a real, spiritual, living soul — 
can rise up and live a higher life in the midst of his 
circumstances. Neither his bodily diseases, nor his 
habitual passions, nor his great wealth, nor his extreme 
poverty, nor his ignorance, can utterly deprive him of 
heaven and angels. Whatever his situation, he may 
become a candidate for an eternal voyage; for his 
spiritual ship is freighted with every means of happi- 
ness and progression. 



THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 



" Be thou like the old apostles, 

Be thou like heroic Paul : 
If a free thought seeks expression, 

Speak it boldly ! speak it all ! 
Face thine enemies — accusers, 

Scorn the prison, rack, or rod ! 
And if thou hast truth to utter, 

Speak I and leave the rest to God." 

I shall not be able to saj more than half that I feel 
ought to be said on this subject to the hundreds and 
thousands who live and think within sectarian walls; 
but, according to the law of progress, the time will 
arrive when all ears will hear and all hearts under- 
stand the gospel of God in contradistinction to the 
prevalent gospel of Diabolism. 

Past peoples followed the course of human preju- 
dice concerning the faults, evils, and iniquities of their 
neighbors. Nothing was easier to understand than the 
supposed or real imperfections of souls outside of them- 
selves. And yet 5e//-knowledge was esteemed to be 
the highest attainment of wisdom. Every true Philo- 
sopher, Spiritualist, or Progressive Bibliarian — every 
person, in short, who taught or teaches from a high 
point of spirit-culture, advocates and urges that true 
seZ/'-knowledge is the highest and most valuable educa- 
tion. But those conceited minds who are not truly 



THE EEIGN OF ANTI-CKRIST. 179 

self-informed,' who do not yet begin to know themselves, 
who still need the hints and revealments of phrenolo- 
gists and psychometrists, who most ardently wish to 
have themselves analyzed — are the very minds who 
judge, with great assurance of perception, the charac- 
ter and conduct of their nearest neighbors ; they 
assume to fully know their neighbors' motives and the 
most secret thoughts that led to individual manifesta- 
tions, as much in social life as in the public arena. 

Nothing is more illustrative of the truth of these 
remarks than the history of theology. When Buddhism 
appeared, the Brahmins, who were the aristocratic reli- 
gionists of ancient Asia, rose up and said, " That is 
Anti-Brahma, and should be overthrown." When 
Buddhism became perfectly established, and when its 
doctrines were sufficiently respectable to exert a wide 
influence in China and in many portions of the East, 
then Brahminism, suspending its opposition, cordially 
shook hands with it ; then the Old and the New ex- 
changed compliments, and sent letters of fellowship 
to each other ; but, notwithstanding all this, one never 
got invited to the other's temple or pagoda. They 
became somewhat tolerant and respectful, but never 
reconciled to each other. And they are perfect illus 
trations of the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations. 

When the Mosaic dispensation became very respecta- 
ble, and great synagogues and costly temples and vast 
cities were consecrated to it — to the laws of Moses, 
which were, in a religious point of view, as complete 
and inexorable as were the laws of the Medes and Per- 
sians — then a pious Eastern lady had the unparalleled 
audacity to believe and to declare that her first babe 



180 THOUGHTS CONCEEOTNG EELIGION. 

was conceived and " sent of God/' And then the star, 
according to the story, went over and stood — where ? 
Not over a palace, but over a stable! Wise men went 
thither to learn, and some of them to worship. Thus 
began a new chapter in theological history. 

But when the babe grew to a young man, and be- 
came sufficiently ^« meddlesome" to interfere with the 
Rabbinical wisdom and religious authorities of the 
times, then the learned doctors and profound Israelites, 
concentrating the opposition of both sects — of the Phari- 
sees on the one side and the Sadducees on the other — 
made common cause and set themselves as one man 
against the young Reformer. And when the meddle- 
some carpenter attained his thirtieth year, and as soon 
as he bravely began his three years' work for the com- 
mon humanity, then they rose up as one party and said : 
" He hath a devil !" " This is Anti-Christ V " Cru- 
cify him, crucify him !" And when he was outwardly 
successful — for it is human nature to admire and al- 
most worship " Success" — when the young Spiritual 
Reformer was successful, then very gladly large multi- 
titudes " followed him." They gathered in vast con- 
gregations to hear the amber words of wisdom as they 
dropped from his inspired lips, and in their enthusiasm 
the disciples cried, " Hosanna V (" three cheers" — that 
was what they meant.) "He is successful in his signs 
and wonders ; he is our man." But when what the 
sightless world terms " defeat" overtook him ; when his 
sweetest truths evoked a public hissing ; when his asso- 
ciates were openly scorned : when the Sermon on the 
Mount was derided on all sides by the learned in the 
temples ; and when there was a great startling convul- 



THE EEIGN OF ANTT-CHEIST. 181 

sion of the world's political relations, which struck 
terror to the highest officers in Judea — then human 
nature, undeveloped and full of pride, declared itself, 
and many of the enthusiastic persons who followed 
him — some of them the most conspicuous among his 
friends — betrayed and forsook him, and sided with the 
opposition and largest party, and cried : " Crucify 
him !" " He is Anti-Moses I" " He is a pretender to 
the throne of Judea !" " He assumes to be what he is 
not!" "He is an impostor!" And then a Jewish 
magnate held his court of inquiry. The young Spiritual 
Reformer was there arraigned and accused. His crime 
was said to be sedition and conspiracy against the Ro- 
man government. He had aroused the prejudices of 
the Israelites. They heard him not in self-defense. 
That was a packed jury ! And I believe that every 
juryman there had in his ear a private whisper, not 
from the angels of heaven, but from those prejudiced 
Israelites who prowled round about, saying, : " He is 
not fit to live!'' "Crucify him!" "Let us defend, 
obey, and save good old Moses, and let us cling firmly 
to the Laws and the Prophets V 

But why dwell upon this event ? You all know the 
history. It is a clear, simple narrative, and is in 
almost every one's external memory. Jesus was Anti- 
Moses. That crime was sufficieut. Consequently, down 
he went perforce into the earth beneath. But at that 
moment he was greater, vaster, more almighty than all 
the world above ground ! When the hour arrived for 
the eternal truth to manifest itself, the birth of it only 
astounded those who saw with their physical eyes. But 
the civilized world, to-day, looks upon that august 



182 TnOUGHTS CONCEKNING KELIGION. 

apotheosis — the going up of a Spiritual Reformer to 
live among the Gods — as one of the grandest victories 
over materialism, and as one of the sublimest spectacles 
that was ever painted on the canvas of the past ; and 
nearly all the accredited eloquence of this age is thrown 
about it; all the resources of rhetoric; all the devices 
of grammar ; all the symbolic reasonings and pictorial 
conceptions of Christian scholars. Music, fashion, 
wealth, and all the civil and political institutions of 
this country, more or less, harmonize with the convic- 
tion that when Jesus died the world lost its central 
figure in the tragedy of salvation. 

Now what is this that is called " Christianity" ? 
What is the history of Christendom ? I tell you, in 
plain truth, that its history, from first to last, is an ex- 
act reproduction of its tragical origin. As soon as it 
attained to adequate power, it became the persecutor of 
every Scientific and Spiritual Reformer. In its turn, it 
has echoed the word " Anti-Christ" all the way down 
human history. The record is before you. Henry 
VIII declared, in the midst of his regal selfishness and 
personal lustfulness, that he would not be bridled in 
his seekings after various companions in marriage. The 
prelates and bishops at Rome assembled and sat in 
judgment against him. They shouted " Anti- Christ," 
and denounced him, declaring that his relation to 
Catharine of Arragon was holy and valid, and that any 
other conjugal relation would be false as hell and 
opposed to the gospel of Jesus. You know the sequel 
of the story. He immediately broke with the whole 
Roman Catholic world, and from that day to this the 
Catholics have been denounced by Protestants as 



THE EEIGX OF ANTI-CHEIST. 183 

" Anti-Christ ;'" and as " one good turn deserves an- 
other," the Protestants are denounced as " Anti- Christ"' 
bj Roman Catholics the wide world over. 

Martin Luther and his companion, Melancthon, who 
stood on the threshold of that vast religious reform 
which brought the blessings of freedom of conscience 
and free speech, were deemed "Anti-Christ" by the whole 
religious world then called Christendom. These were 
early and bitterly denounced as disbelievers in the 
Bible, x^nd then, as soon as Protestantism became per- 
fectly established, (I will not go into details of its 
history, which are familiar to all,) it began the anti- 
Christian work of persecuting and crucifying every 
Reformer that has arisen. And in nearly every instance 
the new man or the 7iew movement was stigmatized as 
"Anti-Christ" and opposed as "Anti-Christian." 

Now the real anti-Christian — whether man or move- 
ment — can be easily known and recognized. The 
genuine Christian is one who goes about doing good, or 
does good whilst staying at home — not evil anywhere. 
A theologian — a mere theorist in religion — is a very 
different person. " Christ signifies Savior" — the oppo- 
site of evil and destruction. Anything, therefore, which 
saves, or partakes of and imparts the saving principle, 
illustrates the true Christ. Such a person, or such a 
principle, is truly " Christian.'' On the contrary, any- 
thing which militates powerfully and intensely against 
the advancement of a Truth, which sets itself against 
the growth of a Science, or opposes the light of Reason 
and Intuition, is necessarily an antagonist of the good 
principle, " anti-Christian," and practically an ene- 
my of mankind. The Word of God is composed 



184: THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIGION. 

of Love, Justice, Truth, Wisdom, and Liberty. 
Principles, wherever you find them, whether in reli- 
gion or out of it, are infallible and imperishable words 
of God. A Christian is one who wishes to live in rela- 
tion to his fellows as he would have others live with 
reference to him. It is the adoption of the principle of 
perfect justice and reciprocation — of doing to others as 
you would have others do to you — having unbounded 
sympathy, saving charity, practical benevolence, 
crowned by a warm love of truths and a reverence for 
what is truly Supreme. Therefore to cherish a wor- 
shipful love of Father God and Mother Nature is to be 
Christian and religious also, in the largest spiritual 
sense. 

The opposite is easily comprehended. To be the 
opposite of all this is to be " anti- Christian." To live 
unjustly and combatively, so as to produce discord and 
enmities among your fellow-men ; to give misinterpre- 
tations to the plainest truths that you may hear; to act 
falsely, with duplicity and hypocrisy ; to deal with man- 
kind maliciously and selfishly ; to hold passions, to 
harbor prejudices, to foster intemperate appetites ; in 
short, to do, or feel, or think, whatsoever breeds dis- 
cord and destruction in human family or society, is to 
be necessarily, and diametrically opposite to the 
redeeming principles, and is, strictly speaking, ^"^ anti- 
Christ." 

But sectarianism does not judge by this standard. 
Each Church holds that everything is anti-Christian 
which does not fully accept its adopted creed. . Thus 
the Methodists are Anti-Christ to the Presbyterians. 
Calvinists could not endure John Wesley's anti- 



THE EEIGN OF ANTI-CHKIST. 185 

Christianism ; not that Methodists were not just as 
good pietists and citizens as the Presbyterians, but be- 
cause Wesley's followers did not receive the gospel 
which Calvin taught as biblical and infallibly true. In 
like manner when Unitarianism appeared, it was every- 
where denounced as " Anti-Christ." The same 
denunciatory spirit is written in the history of the Dis- 
senters in England and Scotland. They fled to the 
mountain-glens and sought safety among the distant 
valleys. The Waldenses and the Huguenots — how 
cruelly they were persecuted in consequence of not 
adopting the religious creed which passed current as 
God's Word among those in power at the time ! Not 
because the Huguenots were not just as good as others ; 
not because the Waldenses were not upright and 
honorable persons, industrious and frugal, exemplary 
in their families ; but simply because they did not 
believe in the various cardinal principles which were 
authoritatively called ••« God's Word" in the creed of 
the dominant Church. 

The same persecuting spirit appeared and was 
applied to the early leaders and teachers of the Uni- 
versalist denomination. They were all " Anti-Christs." 
Universalism was so terribly Anti-Christian because it 
was not in harmony with the doctrines of eternal suffer- 
ings for a few years of sin. John Murray did not take 
a large amount of stock in a personal Devil nor in a 
literal hell ! and so he was opposed to and denounced 
by the Churches that flourished in grandeur around 
him. And therefore these Churches said, with one 
voice : " He is Anti-Christian — crucify him ! crucify 
him !" You know the history of George Fox and of 



186 'rnouGHTS conceeni]S"g eeligion. 

Elias Hicks ; it is all the same story, a repetition of 
the same outrageous conduct among the eyangelical 
sects. 

Now look at the evil spirit of sectarianism in con- 
nection with the world of Science. The Churches say: 
"Any Science that conflicts with the doctrines of our 
creeds, is no science, and it must not be taught in our 
schools." That was the early trouble of the so-called 
Christian world. It was seen that the doctrines held 
by scientific men, with reference to Nature, were calcu- 
lated to destroy utterly the creeds of the Churches not 
only, but threatened to destroy as well the foundations 
of Christianity. Science and common sense — both pow- 
erful agents from God — early began to destroy the 
fiction-basis of miracles, and to reduce all mental and 
physical transactions to the systematic operations of 
immutable law. The Churches said that this scientific 
and rationalistic opposition to their creed was " Anti- 
Christian," "not because these scientific men and ration- 
alists were bad men ; not because their families were 
less respectable than the families of believers in the 
Bible ; but because they taught the impossibility of 
the Trinity ; because they found nowhere in the bound- 
less geography of God's universe a place for the eternal 
explosion of soul-burning sulphur; and, more especially, 
because Science arid Reason said this world was not the 
center of the physical Universe, but a very insignificant 
part of the material system — on account of all this, the 
Churches rose up and said: " Anti-Christ! — down with 
such Science ! Crucify its first apostle and advocates V' 
You know that the first scientific astronomers were 
obliged to seal their lips, to carry the beautiful truth 



THE EIEIGN OF ANTI-CHEIST. 187 

upon the heart, and to worship the divine secret in the 
silence of a prison. When Science said, «' God is more 
illustrated, and magnified, and vindicated, in these dis- 
tant planets than on this small globe,'' and when it said 
that " this globe revolves around the sun, and not the 
sun around it" — then the sects cried out in great bit- 
terness: "This is surely Anti-Christ!" and they rose 
in monumental resistance to the development and diffu- 
sion of such information. They opposed Science because 
it was opposed to the accepted " Word of God," as 
written out in their sectarian creeds. 

Universalists, Unitarians, the Quakers, the No- 
thingarians — the evangelical and respectable sects, all 
the way down to the bottomless pit of old Hebrew 
mythology — have arisen, as one man and one power, and 
said : " Spiritualism is « Anti-Christ.' " The respectable 
sects say : " There is no question or doubt about it ; 
at last we have found out the evil one who is among us. 
He comes in * the garments of light' — which the Devil 
sometimes either borrows or steals — and calls himself 
Spiritualism.'^ Therefore the leaders and teachers of 
this new truth must be opposed and vanquished. Not 
that Spiritualists in the community are any worse per- 
sons than their Christian neighbors ; not that they act 
offensively ; not that they keep their children from the 
public schools, or fail to pay their taxes, or decline to 
make Presidents or unmake them ; nor that they fail to 
fulfill their responsible relations as citizens, as husbands, 
fathers, brothers, or sisters, wives, and mothers — no, 
the opposition comes from the fact that modern Spiritu- 
alism is to popular theology what Christianity was to 
tne Spiritualism of the Egyptio-Israelites. The modern 



188 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

movement began about fifteen years ago. It has 
gathered strength and momentum every hour since. 
Impelled by its original moving-power of principles, 
it rapidly rolls past the Churches of Christendom, 
although they shout " Anti-Christ !" No imaginable 
opposition could now arrest its progress. In addition 
to its inherent motive force of principles, it adds the 
strength of " facts," which have been accumulating in 
all past Spiritual history. But there is a vaster and 
more influential attraction — viz., the discovery that the 
Future is larger, grander, and more permanent than the 
present ; and that when we go forward, it is towards 
the light out of darkness, toward purity out of imper- 
fection, toward harmony out of discord. This is the 
powerful attraction that draws onward the Spiritual 
movement. Its inherent momentum, and the vitality of 
its central principles, lift it far beyond all the growling, 
barking institutions that pride themselves on not being 
Anti-Christ. I will now ask your attention to eight 
points of Sectarianism — each being a form of "Anti- 
Christ." 

1. What does sectarianism do ? It breaks up hu- 
man sympathies, divides families, breeds animosities, 
leads to misrepresentations, brings confusion, and ends 
in war. It goes out into politics, separates the coun- 
trv, divides limb from limb. This is what it does in 
the civil, social, and political departments of the world. 
Has Spiritualism brought sectarianism into the world? 
What is its spirit ? Love of mankind — brotherly love 
and sisterly love — comprehending the Father and 
Mother principles. That is Christian, and it is also 
Spiritual. It is the opposite of sectarianism. Sects 



THE EEIGN OF ANTI-CHEIST. 189 

have arisen out of theology and priestcraft. Each 
decides the question for the other. But Spiritualism 
stands to-daj as the boundless Protestant, as the Luther 
of Luthers in the midst of this jargon, saying, " Away 
with creeds and party walls ! Break down the parti- 
tions, and build up liberty, sympathy, and unity, among 
these discordant, chaotic, and estranged elements." 
And this is what is called " Anti- Christ !" We say 
that evils, even if they be stubborn as goats, may be- 
come white and gentle sheep one of these days. Some 
believe that a portion of the human race will be con- 
signed to the great goat-gridiron, to be fried forever. 
Goat-steak for breakfast — broiled goats for dinner — 
stewed goats for supper. But to teach that all goats 
are on the way to the sheep-fold; that all may become 
brothers and sisters; that all are on the way toward 
the infinite, approaching from a countless variety of 
paths which lead toward one Positive Mind, and toward 
one encircling sphere of immortal glory and happiness, 
preparatory to a larger and a grander experience in 
individual progress — because Spiritualism asserts and 
advocates these principles and ultimates, it is denounced 
as "Anti-Christ." 

Orthodox ministers could do nothing without " a 
personal devil" or something equivalent to him — could 
do nothing for the salvation of souls without these cells 
in the lower portions of God's universe, where lost souls 
are burning and seething with unutterable suffering. 
Anything opposed to those beautiful cardinal principles 
is Anti-Christ ! ! ! Spiritualism, Quakerism, Unitari- 
anism, Universalismj Atheism, and Deism, are oppo- 



190 THOUGHTS CONCEENING RELIGION. 

nents of such teachings in old theology. Therefore 
they are denounced. 

II. Next we will consider Vindictive Punishments. 
Did Spiritualism bring into the world such punishments ? 
The teaching of the pulpit is, that God punishes arbi- 
trarily ; not as the natural result of violated principles. 
The principles themselves (we say) contain the whips of 
justice by which both the criminal and the victim are 
brought to repentance and compensation. 

The Churches teach that "man is to be arbitrarily 
punished, and that God may justly punish to all eter- 
nity for a few years, a few hours, a few days of sin. 
But reason rebels; for the relation of punishment to 
the crimes committed, is out of all human sense of pro- 
portion. Orthodoxy regards it ail as God's great 
wisdom, and it teaches that men ought to keep still and 
not criticise. But human nature insists that punish- 
ment and crime should sustain some relation to each 
other ; that if a man sins a certain number of weeks or 
years, he should experience punishments which extend 
over something like a corresponding period of time ; or 
that his punishment, if shortened in duration, should be 
at least equivalent in quantity and quality to the nature 
and extent of his crimes. 

Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Spiritual 
reform is, that it brings in this Gospel — that punish- 
ment and crime are always in harmony with each other ; 
that one is balanced by the other, and that there is no 
vicarious atonement, and no virtue in what is called 
death-bed repentance. Theology says, " Our faith will 
sweep you all clean, you miserable sinners ; it will get 
you into the kingdom all beautiful at last, even though 



THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHEIST. 191 

you may have destroyed the liyes of hundreds of your 
fellow-beiugs!" Spiritualism holds a very difierent 
doctrine with regard to the future of all such persons. 
Although there is no despair, there are opportunities 
and privileges, labors and schools, influences of exam- 
ple, and the magnetic attraction of love, all tending 
slowly, winningly, lovingly, to develop better faculties 
in such sinners, and to conquer their imperfect habits 
and badly developed powers. That is what Spiritual- 
ism teaches. Is it Anti-Christian ? 

III. In the world there is the doctrine that God 
sends War as an arbitrary punishment. Spiritualism 
teaches that War comes as a concomitant of human mis- 
direction, of miseducation, and undevelopment. War 
is in harmony with man's lower mental and moral con- 
ditions. When he unfolds a more beautiful character, 
then Society will be sweeter, then nations will be har- 
monized, and then bloody Wars will cease ! The 
Church says " War comes out of heaven ; God sends it 
as a punishment." Spiritualism teaches, on the other 
hand, that War comes out of man's lowest estates, 
and that it is natural to those inferior conditions. But 
this is what the churches call " Anti-Christian Philo- 
sophy." 

lY. Next look at the universal passion for Selfish 
Aggrandizement. Spiritualism comes as the opponent 
of such selfishness. But the churches do not oppose it. 
Did you ever hear a revival-minister stand in the pul- 
pit and teach the doctrines of social refoi-ms, by which 
alone mankind can be developed out of their selfish- 
ness ? Nothing of this at a revival. But the people 
are told that Christ died for sinners, not to cure vou 



192 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

of your selfishness, but to make it possible that, although 
you are as red as fire with iniquities, you can be made 
as white as snow — not saved from the commission of 
sin, but from its " consequences." Spiritualism teaches 
that the doctrine of vicarious atonement for the conse- 
quences of sin comes out of undevelopment, out of a lack 
of justice in man, out of a low, selfish condition of men- 
tality. When men learn the principles of community; 
when they discover that large cities may become corpo- 
rate bodies, as really and practically as these Insurance 
and banking corporations ; and that the whole city may 
become a monopoly in human happiness, instead of a 
mill for social, commercial, and mercantile conflicts, 
then will come among men the delights and beauties 
and equilibriums of the kingdom of heaven. Spiritual- 
ism teaches the absence of selfishness and inculcates 
doctrines of justice and truth to cause men to unite their 
interests. It will be easier to live for each other's 
interests than to live againat Qd^oh. other's interests. 

V. Next, 1 think it will be admitted that the doc- 
trine that Woman should occupy a position equal with 
man is not " Anti-Christ," though the Church affects to 
look upon it as such. The Church says: "The woman 
should not teach, or if she does, she should do it in pri- 
vate, and with her head covered.'' Paul, a great 
authority in the Churches, held that woman had a place 
more brilliant, more attractive, more grand, away from 
the public arena. There are many intelligent persons 
who agree with Paul ; but it will come to be seen one 
of these days that Paul and all who think with him are 
Anti-Christians. And those who hold to the doctrine 
that woman is spiritually, socially, intellectually, aud 



THE KEIGN OF ANTI-CHEIST. 193 

pliysicallj man's equal, but in a different way — that 
woman will have a career parallel with man's through 
all the eternal spheres — such doctrines one of these 
daj's will be called good orthodox Christian truth. 
Now, however, it is " Anti-Christian " and is denounced 
as the Woman's Rights movement. Not a church in 
New York City is open for a speaker upon this ques- 
tion. Dodworth's Hall, or Peter Cooper's Institute, or 
some lesser place, must be hired, to advocate the doc- 
trine that the mother is equal to the father, the sister 
to the brother, and that in the future of society and of 
government they are to stand side by side as compeers 
and mutual supporters. 

YI. Next, take the question of Slavery. Slavery 
must be several years older than Spiritualism. It 
started some time previous to the development of the 
heathen mythologies. You find it before Calvin taught, 
before Luther declared himself independent, or before 
Henry the Eighth broke with the Romish Church. You 
can trace it in all the lower, brutish, and selfish condi- 
tions of human society. Spiritualism declares itself the 
fixed and unalterable opponent of all human chattelism, 
servitude, tyranny, and despotism. It emancipates the 
individual, and proclaims freedom alike to man and 
woman, Jew and Christian, child and adult, black and 
white. Such is the philosophy of this new dispensa- 
tion, which the Church calls " Anti-Christian." I 
know it is anti-creed and anti-church, but it is net 
Anti-Christian. 

YII. Again, Spiritualism teaches that all Excesses 
are vicious ; that persons who indulge in anything ex- 
cessively are guilty of vice, which is certain to be pun- 



194: THOUGHTS CONCEENmG EELIGION. 

ished ; and that no vicarious atonement can save them 
from such legitimate suffering. But the Churches hold 
up the doctrine that man can be cleansed by a miracle, 
and so pass off into the other world pure as a child 
born from the bosom of God. Spiritualism teaches that 
intemperance is as much applicable to eating as to alco- 
hol, as much to activity as to idleness, as much to 
spiritual as to any other human manifestation. Intem- 
perance in any of these departments is vice, is wrong ; 
and balance, equilibrium, harmony in all things, is 
right. 

YIII. Lastly, look at the doctrine in the religious 
world that men are spiritually fallen in animalism, and 
that if they live hereafter it will be by some miracu- 
lous arrangement. Ask the Church people what they 
think of the future ; they will give you the most vague 
and unsatisfactory answer. The Future, in their creeds, 
is an incomprehensible Supernaturalism. They seem to 
think that the other world is as different from this as 
truth is from error. 

Spiritualism, on the other hand, proves the other 
world to be as much a part of this existence as the hu- 
man brain is a part of the spinal marrow. The spinal- 
marrow has been gathered up, and folded over, and in 
and out, and over again, and convoluted into the mental 
organism. The spines of all the lower world — working 
up through fishes, reptiles, birds, quadrupeds, and 
bimanals into the human, growing finer and finer until 
they become human cerebrum, or front brain — flowering 
out from the animal world through the cerebellum, or 
back brain, and hanging itself over on the front, the 
receptacle of the immortal mind ! Thus we trace the 



THE EEIGN OF A^TT-CHJJIST. 195 

first particles of this human brain back through the 
history of all the organic kingdoms of the world 
below. 

The Churches do not seek such knowledge, and they 
openly repudiate it as " Anti-Christian." But we look 
upon Science and Philosophy as the hand-maids of this 
new Religion. Spiritualism opens the human brain as 
the sun opens the petals of the flower, when it trembles 
and bursts into fragrance and beauty : and as Minerva 
sprung from the brain of Jupiter, so the human spirit 
comes forth and rises into that existence which is a con- 
tinuation of this. When these soldiers, facing and 
fighting the enemies of Freedom, are struck down, they 
are not down except to the external physical eyes, but 
are in reality immediately shot up and out into a larger, 
subliraer existence. With this knowledge they can 
march on without trembling. They need not be one 
moment in bondage to the fear of death ; there is no 
grave for the immortal spirit, only a natural and imme- 
diate resurrection. 

But all this the Church calls " Anti-Christian." 
Christian clergymen have ventured to call it the rhap- 
sody of a fanatical brain ! Spiritualism brings a great 
knowledge of the future. The old materialistic school 
of Infidelity has no chance with Spiritualism. Men who 
had no knowledge of the future and no faith in man, 
have now a scientific assurance and a beautiful hope. 
These truths come as an illuminating religion, expand- 
ing the human heart, refreshing the senses, and opening 
the reasoning powers, enabling the mind to see that 
there is no break in the laws of individual progress. 
If such a doctrine is " Anti-Christian,", then human intui- 



196 THOUGHTS CONCEENINa EELIGION. 

tion has no power by which it can distinguish the truth 
from error. Anti-Christianism is teaching that which 
is opposed to the future and to God, to purity and to 
progress. Keformers are obliged to marshal their forces 
against the Anti-Christianity of Christendom. Any- 
thing which militates against the doctrine of Spiritual 
freedom and progress, and the development and expan- 
sion of fraternal love, is Anti-Christ, and it is undenia- 
ble that the Churches are the worst opponents of 
Freedom and Progress. Hence you perceive that the 
WORST Antt-Christianism is the Churchianity of 
Christendom. 

In conclusion, I have but to remind you that the era 
of Spiritual harmony is approaching ; it is coming to be 
part of the common inheritance. Not by any miracle, 
not by any supernatural arrangement, not by the death 
of Christ or any other reformer ; but the New Age is 
coming by the principles of an eternal Divinity, which 
are imperishably implanted in human nature. When 
the new truth comes, it is natural for persecution to 
come also. The opposition is necessary to bring out a 
grander and more perfect development ; so that, while 
we deplore and denounce this sectarian opposition, we 
see that it is natural and proper in the course of human 
progress. 

I would not have any man or woman believe these 
principles any sooner than Nature and Reason will aid 
them to believe. Be just and natural in your spiritual 
growth ; then you will be as firm as the' everlasting 
hills. God is the central magnet of the universe ; the 
spiritual world is the continuation of the natural world ; 
and man's spirit comes out of his brain at death just as 



THE EEIGN OF ANTI-CHEIST. 107 

the flower comes out of the bud in the garden ; it is all 
beautifully natural, and there is no miracle ; and, there- 
fore, when you ascend to the higher life, it will not 
even surprise you ; but will seem like a welcoming 
stream of water to the thirsty, and like a feast of 
wholesome food to the hungry. 

This spiritual truth gives help to all and extracts' 
help from all. Instead of finding an antagonist in 
popular science or philosophy, or an enemy in any of 
the reforms. Spiritualism finds in each and all of them 
true friends, dear relatives, and old acquaintances. 
Therefore, when a man is a Spiritualist, he will very 
likelv be somethino^ else beside — a Woman's Rio^hts 
man, an Anti-Slavery man, a Temperance man ; and he 
believes in the development of higher governmental or- 
ganizations. He is loyal to the government while it 
must exist, but is ever working and longing for some- 
thing better. He is in favor of punishment, if it be 
reformatory and not vindictive. He is therefore. in 
favor of Justice, and is the opponent of all forms and 
degrees of oppression. A Spiritualist is very likely to 
be cosmopolitan. He will have a tender and saving 
regard for his fallen brother everywhere, and feels soli- 
citude for the man who occupies a place higher than 
himself. He extends the fraternal grasp to those who 
are above and those who stand beneath. The modern 
Spiritualist stands erect between these positions^be- 
tween social and religious extremes — and becomes a 
central influence, a medium for the expression of the 
principles of progress, and a friend to all who would 
grow in wisdom and harmony. 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 



"Let each man think himself an act of God, 
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God ; 
And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, 
To show the most of heaven he hath in him," 

The other day a friend who has listened to this course 
of lectures, remarked to me, " It seems tp me that vou 
always leave off in the middle of your subject. There 
is a great deal of introduction, but no completion of the 
subject at the end of your lecture." Yes, I proceed as 
a tree grows— step by step, from its first beginnings 
deliberately onward to fruitage; and I leave off just 
when you first get a glimpse of the fruit, and begin to 
be hungry for some of it. 

The gentleman who made that remark will discover 
that he will resign his physical organization, at the end 
of this section of his external life, in a manner some- 
what as I cease in my discourse — ^just at the place where 
thoughts and ideas begin to be interesting and valuable. 
Men usually die when life begins to be full of sweet- 
ness, magnitude, and significance. When, through many 
accidents and sorrows, you have learned the beginnings 
of a rational way to live, then there sounds a signal 
bell telling you that "your work on earth is over." 
Thus I speak on the subject before me — begin and 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 199 

end, not with the end of a subject, but rather with the 
first sentence in an introduction. Every theme is sus- 
ceptible of being amplified and lived through ages yet 
to come. You cannot sound to the lowest deep of any 
principle that is infinite, nor reach to its highest pinna- 
cle, though you think and speak upon it every hour 
between the cradle and the coffin. 

The object of life ? The careless skeptic thinks and 
says, " This existence is the result of a fortuitous con- 
course of accidents." Aristotle said, " the fortuitous 
concourse of atoms." The accidental meeting and con- 
fluence of atoms, congregated, making a whole, the 
universe, and having inherent vital powers and conse- 
quential galvanic energies that work everlastingly or 
until they wear out, is the sum of the skeptic's careless 
creed. What does such a skeptic think and say of 
humanity ? He says, men are here by accident. We 
have stumbled out of matter into a temporary organiza- 
tion, into breathing, conscious life, and we shall in like 
manner stumble back again and drop into the chemistry 
of utter extinction. What then ? What is the sad 
conclusion? Why, that the "object of life" is to eat, 
drink, propagate, be merry, and die. 

I am acquainted with refined ladies and talented 
gentlemen who are, or have recently been, in this state 
of mind ; they particularly think and say, " Let us eat, 
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." They 
reject the fine Gospel of Epicurus, and, instead, adopt 
the purely sensual interpretation of his grand sentence, 
that " True happiness consists in bodily ease and mental 
tranquillity." Epicurus was not one who debauched 
his appetites and defiled the organs of his body. Pure 



200 THOUaHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

and simple was his style of life. Music in flavors, rausic 
in odors, harmony in compounds prepared for the 
stomach, purity in the fluids for drinking, and perfect 
health in all parts of the body, which is the basis of 
tranquillity of mind and repose in the spirit. 

There is another interpretation of the object of life. 
The Assembly's Shorter Catechism gives the c^og-matic 
answer to this grand question. I suppose it is natural 
and right that the catechisms and dogmatisms of the 
world should be kept securely in the same cage of creeds. 
They always give the same hideous howl to the souFs 
freest questionings, "What is the chief end of man?" 
You remember the answer — " To glorify God." The 
chief end of untold millions already gone, and of innu- 
merable millions yet to go into the higher spheres, is 
simply to serve and glorify God, a supposed personality, 
and enjoy his presence forever. What does the dic- 
tionary say about " glory" ? The word " glory" has 
two or thee definitions ; one is anything that is bright. 
A bright day is a glorious day. Anything that is 
resplendent and beautiful, is glorious. Thus the object 
or " end" of all these countless myriads of human 
hearts and heads will be one— what? "To glorify 
God ;" that is to bedazzle his existence, to brighten him 
up, to make him shine — that is the first work, the mid- 
dle work, and the work eternal ! What next ? " To 
enjoy his presence forever." This is the chief object of our 
creation and immortality according to the catechism. 
Who will stand or sit in the front ranks ? Will everybody 
have an equal amount of enjoyment ? If the Christians 
are countless, how can they be all stationed for this 
"glorious" work in one place ? Will there not be some 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 201 

vansruards and some rearguards, some safeguards and 
unsafe guards in the midst of the pent-up kingdom ? 
Those who are nearest the throne, would naturally have 
a better chance •' to enjoy his presence" than those who 
are from the necessity of space farther back. Or, do 
they take turns in coming to the front to see and 
" glorify'' and enjoy the Trinity ? Is such a life to be 
the basis of your employment throughout eternity ? 
Made, as each human soul Is, with twelve loving, ener- . 
getic, intelligent, immortal attributes — fitted for cease- 
less and variable industry, for art and for science, and 
demanding for their full gratification not less than the 
circle of the whole universe — and yet through the end- 
less ages to live and think and work and sing only to 
brighten up God, and " to enjoy" the radiant smiles 
and gratified approbation of the Trinity! Outrageous, 
imbecile theology! An insult to the mind of every 
reasonable man ! Our children, thank heaven ! are not 
taught these heathenish doctrines. To rational minds 
the Catechism is like a controversy on the Trinity ; 
nothing but " an oblong blur," a spot on the sun of 
progress in the development of religious ideas. 

Again, suppose we take the definition that to " glo- 
rify God," means to worship and to praise him. Does 
that help it any ? Think of a deity whose bump of 
approbation and other selfish organs must be constantly 
Btimulated by the speeches and songs of his children, so 
that he may be comfortable and in a happy "frame of 
mind." Glorify God ! Why, a noble human being is su- 
perior to requiring that service from either his children 
or peers. A true man is above acclamation or adula- 
tion. He stands upon the sublime inherent indorsement 



202 THOUGHTS CONCEEITIKG EELIGION. 

of eternal right and truth ! What other detinition can 
sectarians give to the words, " To glorify G-od" / Any 
theological definition will be an insult to your common 
sense, and an outrage upon a true idea of the eternal 
Father-Spirit, who, like the sun, warms and lights all 
with love and wisdom to the ends of the universe. 

There are spiritually-minded men and women, truly 
religious people, ardent lovers of justice and humanity, 
who feel that there is nothing better for the sustenance 
and elevation of the soul than the truth of Deity. These 
minds are many times tempted to ask each other, " What 
is the object of life V They would " do good," but the 
" way" does not open with the " will," and they flounder 
in uncertainties. I know a person who persists in 
thinking that woman's highest and only mission consists 
in keeping house, multiplying the race, and obeying her 
husband in all things ; and that man's strongest and 
most enduring interest in woman, under the laws of 
nature, is wholly of " the earth, earthy," and so he 
scouts the modern notions of woman's equality and inde- 
pendence. And this man, both a husband and father, 
began life with high hopes and sublime anticipations, 
believing that something heavenly and grand would 
grow out of the reformer's ideal of the holy mission and 
beautiful progress of woman. Of course, such a man 
was too weak to withstand a few of life's disappoint- 
ments. Others suppose that the best way to answer the 
designs of life is to accumulate riches and to enjoy the 
power and commanding position which wealth gives. 
The Rothchilds and the Astors can give no other reply 
out of their practices and experiences. But the upshot 
of all is disappointment and oppressive cares, with 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 203 

nothing' but a place to sleep, something to eat, comtorta- 
ble clothing, and only such assistance and attentions as 
you receive from those to whom you pay the wages due 
to labor. A few fine souls think Art is the object of life. 
Some say that whatever they feel themselves intel- 
lectually, morally, or passionally drawn toward, is the 
true indication of the object of their existence. I could 
name many other theories and definitions, but you can 
trace them out and analyze them for yourself. 

Now since, from the mind's constitution, it is certain 
that each nature will act logically from its own tem- 
peraments, it becomes of the utmost importance that its 
convictions of life's object be of the firmest and truest 
character, well founded in science, in thought, in love, 
and in wisdom. Let us, therefore, proceed to ask and 
answer this question from our own standpoint : 

First, Look at the lessons spread out in Nature's 
fields. What do you feel and see and hear ? Do you 
not both feel and see that there is a. plan, and a unitary 
flow and effort, marked out and imaged forth in all 
visible things ? The true inductive philosopher traces 
" design" backward through the apparent to its central 
source. The earnest effort of each true investigator is 
to trace, through the different series of material organi- 
zations, the thought of God inwardly to the center, 
which is the heart of the eternal and infinite. When 
he finds the central Cause, he shouts, " Eureka, Eureka I" 
More wonderful than Aladdin's lamp is the magical 
power of this truth. It kindles up all the central fires 
of creation, fills individual life full of unutterable beauty, 
and clothes all forms of matter and animation with an 
undying significance. The moral world, a subterranean 



204 THOUGHTS CONCEENING "RELIGION. 

sphere to which we seldom go, is divided and subdivided 
iuto beautiful series of groups or compounds. It would 
be useful to describe to you the divine wonders of that 
dark and mysterious chemical world. You would 
become delighted and gloriously at home among the 
elements and their combinations. You should learn 
how beautifully, how entirely in accordance with the 
great principle of harmony, the elements and their com- 
pounds are arranged in the laboratories of matter. 
Series give rise to groups, groups develop combinations 
expressing wholeness, and that "wholeness" constituting 
the entire mineral kingdom. All this arrangement of 
matter means something. The materialist asks, " Cui 
bono V Wants to know " what for and what good ?" 
He asks this wondrous world beneath the soil, and it 
points him in silence to the revelations of the wonderful 
worlds above. 

Come to the vegetable and floral worlds. Ask our 
horticulturists, and our pomologists, and our botanists ; 
ask those who daily and yearly associate with the varie- 
ties of beautiful plants and trees and flowers, who 
cultivate berries — ask them, for they are always enthu- 
siastic and glad to be questioned concerning their pets. 
You never knew a man, a woman, or a child that had 
come in pure and full contact with the spirit of Deity 
in the flower-kingdom, but would speak of it with enkin- 
dling enthusiasm, (which means, " God in the heart,") 
speaking to and warming the loving and beloved flower, 
the two kissing and embracing, as life meets life ia the 
angel world. But when the hard materialist looks upon 
all this beautiful kingdom spread out in the world, he 
asks, " Cui bono V " what good ?" Every intelligent 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 205 

human being should ask this question about the glori- 
ous physical world, but not without a profound and 
reverent desire to obtain the true answer. 

Next we come to the organic world ; out of the 
simple into the compound, and animated. Look at the 
finely shaded gradations in this beautiful animal world. 
Look at the fishes and reptiles, the families of birds, the 
varieties of marsupials, the many branches of the mam- 
malia, the different tribes of quadrumana, the strange 
half-human form and features of bi-mana, and lastly 
the different races of man. What does all this mean ? 
It means that Jacob's ladder had an origin long before 
the advent of human organization. Its lowest round 
began way down in the rude fish-world, on which the 
angels of progress both descended and ascended through 
all the higher forms of matter. I do not wonder that 
true philosophers are enthusiasts. I wonder not that 
Professor Youmans, and Agassiz of Cambridge, and 
such men as Liebig, look as though they had roses 
blossoming in their cheeks when they tell the people 
about these beautiful manifestations of the Divine. 
Professor Mitchell, who has attained a higher observa- 
tory than when he lived in Cincinnati, who laid down 
his body while working for the grand old flag in South 
Carolina, can now look out into the pure blue and con- 
template the stars. He now sees farther, deeper, and 
with infinitely more intellectual and spiritual satisfac- 
tion. And what does he see ? What do the astrono- 
mers, Galilleo, Newton, Humboldt, and all such- who 
have eternal homes in the Summer-Land, see? They 
see unutterably more than mankind can find in the 
mineral and vegetable and animal. They enjoy the 



206 TnOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

life of the matliematical, geometrical, organizational 
and harmonious. Look at the planets. They are sown 
in space, and they seem to grow broadcast over the 
sky. The series are not sharply defined and definite. 
The varieties of planets are not perfectly visible, nor 
do they seem to be entirely mathematical in their 
arrangement. But the higher astronomers see better. 
The planets are capable of divergence. They have 
deliberations and aberrations. The series are, neverthe- 
less, perfectly geometrical and mathematical. Ascend 
to the sublime palace of the upper universe, in which 
blazing planets, night and day, more "glorify God" 
than can all the prayers of innumerable millions. They 
are rigidly and immutably mathematical, geometrical, 
and perfect in the arrangement of groups and series, 
which in the combination constitutes a planetary sys- 
tem. This perfect system never yaries from its vitalic 
laws. It never has a tangential development ; there is 
never an accident in it ; atoms never get up a fortuitous 
manifestation ; all roll and unfold together in a glorious 
harmony, and in strictest accordance with the divine 
heart of the indestructible universe. Do you ask the 
question, " Cui buno?" What good ? and what /or ? 

Now comes the personal importance of the question. 
Here we are, in this world, standing before ourselves. 
What does it mean ? It means that man is still man's 
unsolved problem. I think I need not assure you that I 
have with as much self- forgetful devotion as ever Hindoo 
bowed to his idol, with as much sincerity as an ortho- 
dox minister addresses the throne of the three deities, 
turned my faculties day after day, and year after year, 
to the answer of the question, " Why do I exist ?" 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 207 

Why, and for what object or end, does my brother and 
mv sister, live ? 

Daily I see about me the phenomena of marriage and 
the phenomena of prolification. Here are the facts of 
marriage and parentage, and the facts of bodily disease 
and death and disappearance. These phenomena are 
conspicuous and come before the world every day. Now 
do you not want to know what lies behind and underr 
neath all these phenomena ? Then trace the stream of 
divine thought back to its fountain. ^ Let us go through 
the fields of thought and traverse mountains of mystery 
to their very summits. As fearless explorers work 
among the bleak and snowy hights of the physical 
planet, making paths for others to tread, so let us walk 
upon the beautiful and fertile hights of these mount- 
ains of contemplation. Let us scale them. Sleep out 
every night in your doubts if you choose, or journey 
forward with the bare-skin of skepticism, exposed to 
truth's sun, but in the midst of it all hold fast to the 
healthy idea of the largest integrity and magnanimity 
in your motives. To know, and then to put his best 
knowledge into harness and to make it draw, is the 
grand coronation which accompanies and succeeds the 
good man's search after truth. With a full-hearted and 
holy devotion, I have pursued this question, and I shall 
this morning give you what, to me, is the briefest and 
largest answer. If I ever see more with reference to 
it, and can then speak to you as I now do, I shall be 
ready to tell it ; but if I do not yield a better answer, 
I know that each of you will ; for what is possible to 
me now, is a prophecy of realization for every other 
one in the progress of life. 



208 THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

Leaving the kingdoms of the earth and the mighty 
questions which they suggest, and retiring from the 
starry firmaments and from all the holy questions which 
they awaken, I ask your attention to yourself, because 
in yourself alone you will find the explanation of " Why 
do you exist?" Analyzing the individual externally, 
you find a beginning and an end to the career of being. 
With the planet it is just the same. All things and 
bodies begin with the round 0, what is called "zero" 
in numerals. Man beo-un thus — no intellect, no indus- 
try, no science, no art ; innocence equaled only by 
ignorance, which, under the highest moral standard, is 
no excellence at all. It is the absence of both vice and 
virtue ; a condition equally exposed and assailable. We 
began with the negation, 0. But the moment the intel- 
lect awakened out of the impulses, (for everything has 
love-roots,) that moment an effort was made to expel 
and exclude ignorance, to widen the boundary of know- 
ledge. All the first steps of the race were full of 
stumblings. But through each " fall" mankind arrived 
at much more than they knew before the mistake. Con- 
sider now that the race was thus started and educated. 
What are the results ? Make one straight mark at the 
left of the 0, and you will have added 10 to the sum of 
benefits. Everything valuable that men do, adds ano- 
ther mark to the left of the 0. The race has added 
many figures to the left, while the idiot " makes his 
marks" at the right of the 0. What does the ignorant 
one get? Nothing, because his marks to the right of 
the cypher kills its value. Such is the idiotic plan of 
old theology. The progressive plan, on the contrary, 
makes its reports at the left of the zero. We are getting 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 209 

used to great figures in the finances of tliis country. 
These great responsibilities will help to develop the 
better character of the people. Once people would open 
their eves to see a man worth two millions. Now it 
will do to talk about no less than |3,000,000. Persons 
who plod along through trade and arithmetic, who 
look daily up and down their ledgers, can see nothing 
higher than that which is before them. They say, 
"figures won't lie." So say I. Figures will teach 
mankind everything. They will bring men's characters 
up to their standard, because they will not " lie." There 
is that in marks made to the left of zero which enlarges 
and expands and makes men magnanimous, even when 
the " sum" drives them into drivelins^ and shrivelinor 
bankruptcy. People never befo're knew what it was 
that enabled them to rise above great obstacles and 
outswim the Gulf Stream of adversity. 

Figures, in the progressive history of the race, are 
made at the left side of the round 0. What does it 
mean ? It means that mankind have been multiplying 
and enhancing the inherent value of their relations to a 
diviner life. This has been done for you and for me. 
It has come out of numbers and out of the teeming cen- 
turies. What is man's organization ? He has a body, 
with a sphere of soul-life between the outmost and the 
spirit, which is deepest within. The greatest external 
success occurs in the middle region; as between the two 
extremes on the planet is the greatest fertility, the 
greatest industry, and the greatest development of 
wealth. The soul, which is not as high as spirit in 
refinement and function, is in contact with this 
world. It is the source and the play-ground of 



210 THOUGHTS CONCEKNING- EELIGION/ 

passions and appetites. It is the fulcrum on which all 
passion and force-levers are placed ; the bridge over 
which all animal emotions, impulses and energies travel 
between the body (outmost) and the spirit (inmost). 
Only now and then do we perceive glimmerings of 
pure spirit in man. 

Men and women sing about being angels in this 
world. It is difficult to become angels in the cellar- 
kitchen of life; but it is possible. You can live a 
sweetly ordered life, and can use your will-power to 
regulate your thoughts and keep discord away. Genuine 
angels know nothing about being " tempted^' to do any- 
thing that is wrong. If you can be tempted, you are not 
yet above the conditions from which temptation ema- 
nates. Pure spirit is above the reach of temptatio/i. 
Moral strength to overcome or to resist evil, is the 
promise of the future angel. It is, in fact, the basis on 
which the angel-character is finally erected ; yet if you 
are tempted at all, you have not ascended above the 
soul-plane. You do not yet live in the Spirit. You 
will, therefore, be tempted to do various things — little 
things, great things, bad things, indifferent things — 
sometimes, perhaps, good things may be done unwisely, 
or overdone, or done to excess. I know persons who 
do some good things until they get in everybody's way — 
until a very excellent thing in itself becomes a stum- 
bling-block ; like the expression of divine music, con- 
tinued for hours instead of moments, becomes tedious, 
because too exquisite, and ultimately the best strains 
would be irksome to the highest master of the holy art. 

I said that pure spirit is seldom manifested in this 
world. Why ? Because eighty per cent, of life here is 



THE OBJECT OF LIEE. 211 

body and soul. Hence men say, " Well, there are only 
two parts of us ; one is inside, soul ; the other outside, 
body." Some insist that there is nothing but matter 
about and within man. Col. Colt, the man who invented 
the pistol bearing his name, a great, splendid looking 
man, once said, " Mr. Davis, I don't understand your 
doctrine. You say that I have an immortal soul. If 
you will trot it out, so I can see it, I will give you five 
hundred dollars." Wanted me to " trot out'' the evi- 
dence that he would live after death. A soul ! he did 
not believe in it as an eternal verity. Said he, " Here 
I am, so much bone and muscle and blood and brain — is 
there anything else? I am perfectly willing," he 
• continued, " to help with money to support a good thing. 
I go to the Catholic Church, and to other meetings 
where I can hear fine singing and eloquent speaking, 
no matter where or who, and I am willing to pay for 
it ; but I would give most to know that I shall always 
continue." He expressed the skepticism of vast numbers. 
Body and soul, not spirit, are most manifested dur- 
ing this life. Body is uppermost sixty-five per cent, of 
the time, and only the rest of the hours is given to soul, 
which includes passion, appetite, impulse, and indifferent 
emotions. All the energies that make soul are dis- 
played in the heat of the blood, the electricity of the 
nerves, the will-forces of the brain — all enter into the 
composition of the soul. Now, this fact in life means 
something. I know that men in the churches say, " It 
is because individual man is fallen ; this is why men 
have more body than spirit. The life of your heart is 
blackened by the Adamic curse ; so you are working 
along and struggling through materiality." 



212 THOUGHTS CONCEENING EELIOION. 

But look deeper and see if there be not a beautiful 
meaning in it all. We are not authorized to contend 
with facts; we are here rather to comprehend and make 
use of them. The age of flagellation, of sacrificial offer- 
ings, of self-excoriation, of unworthy and imbecile 
adoration, is past. The cosmotheosis is begun. Those 
who linger in the rear of the vanguard will continue to 
fall in the ashes, and to roll and crawl like worms in 
the miserable muck of ignorance and theological super- 
stition. Well, why is materiality uppermost ? 

The meaning of it all is, the body is a factory. 

Suppose an Indian should enter a factory at Lowell, 
Mass. Suppose the factory is not at work ; that it is 
being repaired, as he enters for the first observation. 
Suppose the wheels are still, the shafts down on the 
floor and piled up in confusion, the belts lying here 
and there, fire out of the furnace, and that no machinery 
is in action anywhere. He departs without any definite 
Impression of its utility. In a few weeks he is again 
shown into that factory ; he looks at the buzzing cog- 
wheels, at the swift spindles, he sees the tremendous 
shafts in the act of revolution, the large leather belts 
running with still power, andhe looks upon it with the 
same consternation, or with the same stupid expression, 
as many people look upon the object of their existence 
in this world. The foreman asks the Indian, " What 
do you suppose is the object of these wheels and shafts 
and belts?'' " Me don't know." He shakes his head; 
he is almost dumb. The master-machinist then says, 
"Red man, let me tell you. The wheels and all the 
machinery that you see here, are but parts of one design, 
and one result will come out of it all." The savage, just 



THE OBJECTH OF LIFE. 213 

like a skeptic, knowing nothing of the end, is confounded. 
Now, what is that one result ? Po you see that cloth 
piled upon those shelves ? What ! it is all designed to 
make cloth ? How is it made ? and from what ? The 
savage is now taken down into the lower stories where 
the stock is received. There he sees coarse and dirty 
looking stuff — cotton. " Do you tell me," exclaims the 
Indian to the foreman, " that such stuff is made into that 
beautiful material I saw on the shelves?" The one 
perfect result, accomplished through (to him) countless 
intricacies and most inconsistent parts, was impressed 
upon his savage mind. 

Now, are we not all savages on this problem of 
life's ce;itral object ? What means this world so filled 
with confusion? Behold fishes and birds and reptiles 
and plants and trees and stars scattered and sown about 
everywhere. Is it all a system of accidents; all a for- 
tuitous concourse of atoms ? What means all this to 
man ? Are not the brightest intellects confounded by 
the wonderful complexity of the system? Let us stand 
on the summits of the mountains, in the presence of this 
grand machinery of the universe, and learn to compre- 
hend the magnitude of its meaning. The human body 
is a factory full of wheels. The stock to be manufac- 
tured into a beautiful fabric, is taken in between the 
lips. Look at the miserable stuff that is prepared in 
the world's kitchens! What does it mean? It means 
that one result is to be accomplished by the wheels. 
What wheels ? The heart, the lungs, the pancreas, 
the liver, the stomach, the gall-ducts, and kidneys. 
The soul and body, after taking in stock, wants an easy 
chair. The brain, the seat of government, has closed 



214 THOtJGnTS CONCERNING EELIGION. 

doors for a secret session. The wheels are set in motion, 
for the engine has received energy from the heated 
fiber. You know enough of physiology not to need any 
specifications of the digestive process. Material is being 
manufactured up into the so-called immaterial. The 
spiritual meaning of life answers the question of the 
object of man's existence in this world. The passions 
and appetites may be put to high and grand uses ; for 
all things we eat and drink, and all the elements we 
breathe, are converted into a garment, which, after 
death, gives personality and form and immortal beauty 
to the SPIRIT. You are here just as the silkworm is in 
the cocoon, winding fine thread into the formation of 
your spirit's body, so that the essence of the spirit itself 
can have personality and be protected forever from dif- 
fusion. At last the soul predominates and becomes the 
crowning work ; all the rest is subordinate and 
co-ordinate and auxiliary. Marriage and parentage 
and homes, and the various arts and sciences, are so 
many intermediates and accessories and tributaries and 
streamlets flowing into the one central object of being 
in this world. 

Whatever we eat and whatever we drink is more 
or less represented in the article manufactured. Hence 
you may have a soul prepared for the Summer-Land, 
streaked with tobacco. Or, it may be very odoriferous 
after death with alcohol. Of course, the fluid alcohol will 
be left just where you left your money and your clothes, 
but -the effect of it remains, because you have wrought 
and sprinkled it into your spirit's body. Suppose a 
paper-maker says, " It is no matter what I put into the 
composition before the article is manufactured. I can 



THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 215 

put in cotton and old rags, old boots, some beefsteak, 
some old beans, and I will make paper as good and 
white as any other maker." Do you believe that ? 
Ask the artist. Can he put any kind and admixture 
of colors in his piece ? No — a beautiful painting 
requires a careful arrangement of properly mixed 
cxjlors. So with man's foods and beverages. He is 
making a spiritual body from all he eats and drinks 
and breathes, and to accomplish this result, in the best 
and highest style, is to fulfill the organic object of the 
present life. 



